Life at Capgemini - Chapter III

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Good morning, good afternoon or good evening! I can’t honestly say I know what time of the day I am posting this and you are reading it. At the moment, I am stuck in a time frame of adding on two hours from the UK, deducting one hour from Denmark to landing in Lithuania which is again another one hour ahead!

The last time I blogged I had then moved to a new project based in Slough working with a client to implement and integrate a SAP based system across two different sites, one in Austria and one in Lithuania.  Six months on and I am still here! J I say that with a smile on my face as I have thoroughly enjoyed the last six months of travelling abroad to different countries, meeting new people, absorbing different cultures, seeing some remarkable sights in Lithuania and most importantly, conquering the challenge of completing a very important piece of work.

Six months in and we are now coming to the testing and analysis stage of our project.  The system we have designed has gone into pre-production testing as we are only eight weeks away from our launch date. On this day the system will be available to all.  The project has been very challenging: I have travelled frequently to Lithuania, working closely with various clients.   It is a crucial stage of the project as it will now spread from testing to migration to final evaluation before go-live in production at which point we will begin the re-evaluation and feedback phase of the project.  The final stages of a project are the most rewarding yet nerve-wracking too as months of preparation and work come to a head!

But work hasn’t totally taken over my life! I have also been made lead for the BTC for our Learning & Development Affinity Group.  The affinity groups at Capgemini deal with different areas of life at work which affect the BTC,eg marketing, events and activities, recruitment and selection – there is a group for each run by a graduate.  The aim is to deal with any issues and find ways of helping the BTC to perform better and enjoy their time at Capgemini.

So, as part of the Learning & Development Affinity Group we shall be looking at ways to assist fellow graduates on how we can improve their learning experience at Capgemini.  This involves improving the training classes available, the types of training classes available, and organising solution centre road shows to help graduates find future opportunities.

Okay - so you could argue that is still work!  But it is a very different aspect of work as you are helping friends and colleagues. I’ve added a few pictures I've taken recently whilst enjoying the lovely summer at Palanga Beach, just to make you jealous ;)  I think it’s safe to say life at Capgemini is… good. Very good right now J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture 1: Lovely sunny beach, Palanga.

 

 

Picture 2: A stunning picture of the glistening sun shining off a patch of water on Palanga Beach.

 

 

Picture 3: An Absolutely magnificent picture taken using the aid of the HDR on the iPhone4 - Stunning picture of Sunset at Palanga Beach. My favourite pic :)

 

 

Picture 4: A closing picture of a beautiful sunset fading into the night sea.

All pictures were taken by me - so i hope you're impressed!! :D

Hope to bump into you in the near future ;)

Viso Gero (Lithuanian for ‘bye-bye’!)

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From 6 months to 1 year at Capgemini – Part 3: Roles

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Ok so back to the nitty-gritty of actual work! So last time I left off at a large public sector organisation with a new role in the pipeline! This new role took a bit of time to come to light … four months to be exact …”this doesn’t sound good!” … Yes and No is the truthful answer! On the one hand the ideal amount of time for a BTC project is around the six-month mark, so being on a role for nine months doesn’t sound ideal! On the other hand, on a particularly challenging project with challenging deadlines it is difficult to simply move from one project to another, without being disruptive to the whole team.

Coming back to the point of being flexible and open minded as consultants, it’s all about taking it in your stride and making the best of a potentially unwanted situation. OK, I was still on the same project but some of the work I did, like working on integration for a very complex system, as well as having the opportunity to facilitate a User Acceptance Testing sign off session gave me exposure to clients and 3^rd parties as well as a real appreciation for project delivery. Although this isn’t exactly the field of work I want to go into, in the long term the experience I gained was invaluable, as at the end of the day the system Capgemini and the client drafted at the requirements stage needs to be reflected in the actual product delivered. On top of this I was able to pick up some additional work in assisting the development of an archiving strategy as part of the Business Information Management business unit. This has helped me immensely in terms of networking as this is a direction I am potentially looking to ‘transition’.

This additional time on the project also give me the opportunity to scout around for a new role given my new end date. After a few drinks and watching some American Football with some friends from work I managed to secure a role at a major high-end fashion label, to develop their website with a number of interactive and innovative features. I haven’t been in the role long (two weeks to be exact), but I can honestly say I love it, emphasising that ‘good things come to consultants who are flexible’! Initially I am assisting testing some great new customisable product applications and some integration between new mobile applications and social media platforms. This role has already promised to be a short one however with my host of contacts made from facilitating the induction week, and the new ones I have met on the project I already know of a number of new openings for the same client more within my interests, in the near future with my name already firmly stamped upon them!

 All in all you can probably tell it’s been an exciting time, with probably a lot more opportunities available than you might think from a company like Capgemini. As I previously mentioned this style of working might not appeal to some people, but for others quite the opposite! Despite the hard times there have always been positives to take away which can be turned into a positive in the grand scale of things regarding your personal development! Not only this, it is still very much apparent the best aspect of working for Capgemini is the people. When work gets difficult or for example if like me I had to stay on a project longer than expected which was tough, there is always your support network of friends and management to help you get the most from an unwanted situation, and see the positives from what you are adding to Capgemini as a whole.

Looking forward to the next six months, number one on my radar is the upcoming promotion nomination rounds. I will be looking to settle fully into the new project I have recently started before securing myself a new role whilst looking at the software lifecycle from a new angle. From a community point of view I will be going back to my old university in Birmingham to run a number of consulting skills sessions come December and finally I will be starting to look seriously at all of the transition opportunities available to me, some of which I have already made progress with. ‘Transitioning’ in simple terms is the logical next step in your career following the BTC where you start to understand what you enjoy and start to carve out a specialism within the one of the various Capgemini business units! So lots of exciting things to look forward to, and to tell you about in the near future!

 

Blog by Gareth Woodward

 

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From 6 months to 1 year at Capgemini – Part 2: Community

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In my previous blog, I mentioned that new opportunities arose in not being able to attend the Collaborating With Clientscourse in Les Fontaines and I wasn’t lying with that one.

The first opportunity was with Raleigh … Having previously been involved on a Raleigh project, this time I had the opportunity to organise the entire event with one of my peers alongside the team at Raleigh. This was yet another opportunity to test my leadership and organisation skills and let me tell you now, organising and arranging 20 graduate colleagues who are spread around the country, on various projects, and have various work commitments to be in one place at one time is no easy feat! Despite the difficulty the results we achieved at the WHA Westbury Grange care home were exceptional, and of course a chance to have a sociable drink with the group made the weekend an absolutely incredible experience once again!

A short time ‘on the bench’ opened up the opportunity for me to help organise and facilitate the new BTC intake induction week. I remembered the fun and laughs had on my own induction week so signed up straight away. Seeing the week both from an organisation and facilitation point of view wasn’t quite what I expected … Where all the activities and talks with senior personnel at Capgemini seemed like a smooth well oiled, completely pre-defined and simple process from the beginning, the amount of organisation behind the scenes to ensure the right people are in the induction room at the right time was incredible! However, as with Raleigh, the feeling of the week coming together brought about a huge amount of relief and self satisfaction not to mention giving you the opportunity to network with new peers and with some very senior staff at Capgemini! The contacts I made from that week have now started to bear fruit when it comes to ‘transitions’ (all will be revealed later!) as well as a range of potential roles coming up soon.

You may have noticed that I haven’t really focused at all at the actual roles I have undertaken during the last six months … “Hold on were getting to that bit soon!” However again I think the best approach to truly appreciate what life is like in the graduate scheme is understand that it isn’t all about the roles you do … ok it’s a very large part of what you do, it’s what you get paid to do at the end of the day! However it’s easy to forget and appreciate the range of opportunities other than your direct role as a consultant which may arise. Whether this is the training you are sent away on or whether it is the community work you do … all these experiences all add value to the company, the wider community and to yourself as an individual! That is what I have loved about job so far … ‘Variety is the spice of life’ after all, and it is these opportunities that have really sped up my development.

 

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From 6 months to 1 year at Capgemini – Part 1: Training

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It’s been a while since I wrote my last blog describing my time at Capgemini from the very start ‘From Assessment Centres to 6 months at Capgemini’ and a lot has happened since … again the mediocre cliché’s of ‘time has flown by’ and ‘it’s been a rollercoaster ride’ describes the latest instalment in my Capgemini career to date begrudgingly well!

As you may well have seen from my previous blog I was primed and ready to take on the next rounds of ISEB Foundations in Business Analysis and Systems Development, the Collaborating With Clients (CWC) course at Les Fontaines , the home of Capgemini University, and I was also preparing for life on a new role. Some of these happened straight away, some of them didn’t, some are still to happen. New opportunities have, however, arisen and some of the original list are still in the pipeline … sounds very cryptic I know … but all will be revealed and hopefully this latest blog will give you a good indicator of what being a ‘flexible’ Technology Consultant is all about. As prior warning and speaking frankly, this uncertainty of “What’s happening next?” and “Where am I going to be next?” might put you off a life in this field … that’s ok, each to their own … to others it will only reinforce you application … for me this is why I love the field I am in! Either way I hope this and the following two blogs will be useful in helping you decide which side of the argument you fit! “Two more blogs?!” … There’s so much to say and so little time to say it!

So starting off with the opportunities that happened straight away since my previous entry … Training! … “Excellent I always want more training … Whatever it is, send it my way” is the general philosophy I, and I assume most people take when it comes to this topic. I was quickly within the space of a month on two sets of three-day courses for the British Computer Society (BCS)-recognised ISEB Foundation in Business Analysis and Systems Development Courses. Both courses, along with the previous ISTQB Foundation in Software Testing qualification gained, start the foundations for the full ISEB Diploma’s in Business Analysis or Solution Development. Not only was it a chance  to add to my CV, but also a great opportunity to have crash courses in two very important business areas as well as (and most importantly) understand all the abbreviations and acronyms that are so often used in the office!

So with three qualifications under my belt after just over six months, I was pretty pleased … next training on the list … CWC … Training booked … “Les Fontaines here I come” … The excitement building … but no: “Actually, we need you on the project!” and this brings me onto my first point regarding being flexible as consultants. Yes it was disappointing, but change happens, business and subsequent projects change (constantly), but that is what being a consultant is all about, and on the bright side I still have it to look forward to in the coming months. After reading Ola’s blog and speaking to other graduates I heard it’s an incredible experience and now I’m even more excited for the inevitable to happen! But in that by missing this one course a host of other opportunities have come my way instead …

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Collaborating with Clients @ Les Fontaines, Paris

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One of the reasons that greatly influenced my decision to join the Capgemini Business Technology Consulting programme is the scheme’s investment in training and development. Many graduate schemes promise useful training, but from what I’ve been able to ascertain few actually deliver. The BTC programme takes a structured approach towards training, whereby graduates take a variety of mandatory and recommended training modules which help us develop core consulting skills.

Capgemini is proud to have a beautiful chateau about an hour from the centre of Paris and is one of our main conference and training facilities. It is here that one of the compulsory BTC training courses – Collaborating with Clients (CWC) – takes place.

In March, I attended this intensive and valuable training course. The purpose of this course is to arm graduates with a set of fundamental consulting skills which allow us to be more successful at we do – working with clients to provide desired outcomes. Although not the main focus of the CWC, the overriding theme this year for all courses held at Les Fontaines, including CWC, is the impact cloud computing and how Capgemini can help our clients to make the most from it.

The CWC course covers a wide range of skills, from equipping graduates with the knowledge on how to work better in teams to teaching us the best methods of handling conflict and resistance.

Personally, the overarching lessons I gained from this course, and the reason I enjoyed it was the emphasis on soft’ skills. It equips graduates with skills such as how to design and manage interviews; how to manage meetings more effectively; how to problem solve better, amongst other many useful skills.

An exciting feature about this week long course is that it is attended by Capgemini colleagues from all around the world – and not necessarily other graduates. This significantly enhances the learning experience since we are exposed to a variety of working backgrounds, styles and experiences.

The CWC is run alongside a host of other Capgemini training courses which means graduates are provided the opportunity to network with colleagues from other parts of the company.

Aside from the direct benefits offered by the CWC course, the serene and peaceful environment at Les Fontaines, coupled with the dedicated training facility far removed from our day jobs, made it very conducive to learning and was the main reason we were able to learn so much so quickly.

While the CWC course was very interesting and enjoyable, it was certainly no holiday! The intensity of the course certainly helps graduates to manage our time more efficiently in periods of heavy workloads. One final benefit: attending training at Les Fontaines provides an opportunity for a weekend away in Paris – however, I would advise future attendees to enjoy Paris the weekend before the course rather than after as it can be quite tiring.

 

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Noughties gadgets and goodbye

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Over the last decade there have been many technological advances. Here are just a few of them:

Mp3 players: who would have thought that the music industry would be revolutionised by mp3s, downloading music rather than buying CDs? But the iPod and the related iTunes must have an iconic place in the music industry for changing the way that people listen to music.

Mobile phones have advanced getting smaller, having a longer life and becoming multifunctional devices. Most phones that you can buy today have internet access, built in cameras and mp3 players. You can build or buy applications for your phone to personalise what you use your phone for.

The internet although established before the noughties decade has involved with faster broadband speeds, wireless access and mobile broadband. TV programmes are increasingly being streamed over the internet, with application such as the iPlayer leading the way of 'catching up' on missed TV broadcasts.

Devices are becoming smaller with larger memories. Faster and easier to use perhaps? If we have advanced this much in the last 10 years how much will we do so in the next 10? I would love to see teleportation devices developed (as suggested by T3 in their Top 10 Tech Wishes for 2010). This would make travel/commuting much quicker and easier. So as I sign off from my last post I say 'Beam me up Scottie'.

 

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Online Security & Education

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In the past few weeks there have been news stories about email addresses and passwords being posted online for user accounts for Hotmail, Gmail and other web based email clients (BBC News). Should we have more information on how to stay safe online? Is it necessary that everyone sits through an education program before they can log on?

The majority of internet users should know about Phishing and Key logging attacks, which were used to capture the most recent breach of account details. There are plenty of articles online willing to offer advice on how to prevent/detect these. The US has gone one step further and had a National Cyber Security Month in order to educate people about being online. It ‘urged all internet users to play their part in protecting the network from attack’ (BBC News). This implies that not all internet users do this – so perhaps education would be a good idea.

I think that some sort of training before people go online might help educate those who are new to the internet on what can happen. Yet it might also  discourage people, or push them to become complacent with their security. With more people aware of traditional scams it would also force the perpetrators to think of new schemes and ways to trick people - so perhaps there wouldn’t be fewer victims of these scams!?!

Bottom line is: anyone who uses the internet should be aware of current scams, be particularly careful who they give any secure information to, choose a secure password and change it either monthly or quarterly.

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Smartphone - smart choice or security risk?

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Over the past couple of years there has been an increase in the use of smartphones like the Blackberry or iPhone. People tend to use them for receiving email, internet browsing as well as making phone calls. But are they susceptible to security breaches?

Barack Obama - a self confessed Blackberry addict - was forced to switch to a Windows based Sectera Edge Smartphone when he became US president, since apparently there is something lacking in the security of the everyday blackberry. However he will be able to get his hands on the so-called 'BarackBerry' (Blackberry 8830 International) with its enhanced security that meets the National Security Agency standard very soon. So if the US government seem to think that Blackberrys are not secure enough should regular users worry? Possibly not - I guess my latest mail to my friends is not an issue of national security, but client sensitive information is obviously a worry for any business. So should we be thinking twice about what we send over our smart phones?

A recent BBC News article suggested that once a certain amount of the population share smartphones with the same operating system then widespread mobile phone viruses will start to spread. I suppose it is similar to the first computer viruses that only infected Windows based operating systems, rather than the Apple Mac. Once sales get to a level which scammers believe will be of benefit to them then we may see many more viruses affecting unsecured smartphones.

What do you think? Is security such a buzz word these days that everyone is overly sensitive to its use?

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SOA in the 'Trough of Disillusionment'

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In my previous post I discussed what appeared to be the demise of distributed computing, when in reality it had been subsumed into the whirlwind of hype that is cloud computing.  Building on ideas and repackaging them as revolutionary concepts is not a new thing in IT, and cloud computing is the latest example of this.  Another good example, and what I will be discussing in this post, is the effect distributed computing has had on another industry shaping concept - Service Orientated Architecture.
 
SOA takes the notion of distributed computing, focussing primarily on sharing of hardware services, and extends it to software in the form of shared services.  A shared infrastructure in a 'grid' format is used to support a range of software services which execute simple reusable business tasks, such as ‘Get Data’, ‘Store Data’ or ‘Print’.  Using this example, a business requirement such as ‘the system should be able to retrieve a file, store it locally and print a physical copy’ can be satisfied by linking the three individual services together. 

Hanging a number of fine grained (helper services performing simple tasks such as ‘Store Data’) and coarse grained services (long running services that often orchestrate a number of other fine grained services) together will perform the end to end functionality required by a single project; mixing and matching this pool of reusable services enables you to perform the functionality of multiple projects.  To improve flexibility of the end solution and facilitate this ‘pick and choose’ pool of reusable services, each service should be loosely coupled, maintainable, adaptable and extendable, allowing for easy bug fixing and future enhancements without having to worry about users of a service.
 
In 2007, SOA was named by Gartner as the predominant approach for building IT solutions in the coming 3-4 years.  Now, Gartner recognise that, given how fickle and fast-paced the IT industry is, SOA has passed the peak of inflated expectations and is now in the trough of disillusionment, as defined by the Gartner ‘hype cycle’ - now is the time to prove that SOA is a viable method of delivery.  Capgemini, amongst other IT Consulting companies, has shown that SOA can be used in the real world to deliver mission-critical solutions at Corus and highly available, scalable and secure solutions at ING Direct.
 
SOA, contrary to what many may say, is here to stay - proof of this can be seen by the magnitude of blue-chip vendors releasing stable design time governance SOA tools, such as Oracle Enterprise Repository, and runtime governance tools, such as IBM Trivoli Composite Application Manager.  Have you experienced SOA delivery?  If so, did it live up to expectations?

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@twitter #twitter

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In my last post I was gibbering on about using facebook for business, since that post I have dabbled in the art of twitter and I have to say I am not convinced by it... yet. I am a user of facebook and it was when my housemate came back from work one day and openly said “that Stephen Fry is a funny bloke” completely out of the blue that I found out he was referring to his twitter feed.

 

Needless to say 30min later I was signed up and following @Stephenfry, @Wossy, @chrisdjmoyles, and a few other friends on there. It’s a Micro blogging site for those no in the know. Basically people have the freedom to write up to 140 characters in the theory that people would update it more and it would be more interesting and relevant than a blog. If you are following Stephen Fry then you would defiantly agree that people do it more often (some 25 posts a day!).

 

So what are its uses? I can’t see any other than I can find out what people are doing, so add me , I will add you and we can see if this is going to enrich my life... or is it just going to be another internet fad that lasts for a couple of months?

 

On a similar note, you can add companies, and I am thinking that this could be useful, however is it just another form of RSS and distributing news? I would be interested to hear if anyone can think of some good business reasons for companies using this as a form of marketing.

 

Why not also check out http://twitter.com/CapgeminiUKgrad.

 

 

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