Final Analysis Report Alberto Arellano

INTRODUCTION

ClientSide is currently a small consultancy firm that started in 2008. It has handle

both the business and the tech aspects of health care computer technology, with a

special focus on supply chain management and the Lawson ERP. The physical

Location of ClientSide is in Wenatchee Washington. This place is in the north central

side of the state. The actual address is, 1644 Holly Lane East Wenatchee, WA 98802.

Regarding the products delivered, ClientSide conducts enough studies that point

out unnecessary expenses that can be avoided in short and long terms. These

studies require the coordination of resources such as personnel and software

equipment. These types of oriented serves enable opportunities for project

management and database administration as far as the area of IT is concerned.

A typical customer is a for instance a health care administrator from any hospital

that is seeking to find money leaks and if it’s possible ClientSide will see if there is

space for maximizing resources in a cheaper way, without compromising too much

the quality of the products. Other customers will have us work through the data

they have collected with the hope of finding ways to save expenses. After doing

any of those services, ClientSide hopes to find areas where improvement is needed.

If there are several areas of improvement, we then present reports and studies

where some tailored program can bring improvement in their needs.

My job is to work on the project management of the software developing of any of

the requests from the hospitals. In addition to that, I create reports in SQL where

the data retrieved is presented to the customer; of course, my mentor corrects my

mistakes before presenting the main report to the clients. I also aided the President

of the company to coordinate efforts by keeping track of the tasks and progress of

all the team members of ClientSide. What I have to do at the end of the week is to

gather the numbers, and make other reports that will show the progress of the

company on relation to the tasks completed, this helps us see where we are

standing. I feel that a great bonus is to be able to participate of the meetings that

ClientSide has with their clients, they are very technical and it gives me a great

grasp of what real meetings are about.

JOB SUMMARY

In my experience, there were many areas that I saw challenges for instance; I saw

lack of stakeholder participation. What I mean by that is the fact that ClientSide

needs to have access to very confidential information regarding finances. This is

done in order to come up with thoughtful proposals that could save the hospital

thousands of dollars. However, due to this very fact the stakeholders do not feel

very confident at the beginning and have a small participation in this matter, which

slows down our efforts. Stakeholder participation is fundamental to develop the

proper results. In order for ClientSide to bring, effective studies about their

situation, for any health center, or hospital we need the involvement of at least the

business owner or its representative, the Tech resource, and the Subject Matter

Expert (SME). They are needful because they can clear out any questions we have,

unfortunately the search for answers and data feels like we are auditing them and

that blocks some channels of connection that can clarify questions and can help

them save money. Their participation is ideal in order to get good results but

ClientSide does not insist on their participation throughout the project.

Another interesting experience I learned was in regards of the IT people in the

hospital. IT people sometimes focus too much in the technology area and do not

see that often times they should see beyond that. What I mean is that we present

a program that can help the hospital save money but the IT people sometimes find

it difficult to handle when in reality is not that hard. It seems challenging for them

to ask questions regarding the product and even to see how it relates and helps

other branches of the organization that are not in direct connection with them. For

example, we met to discuss a new software that ClientSide program for them, but

we did not have good participation from that department and weeks later, they

were complaining that we did not do a good job and demanded a more expensive

software. In reality, the software had some user problems but we stated that it was

a beta and that we were going to continue developing for them, after the turmoil

we were successful in leaning the testing face of the program to the actual one.

Other experience that I had was to have the conversion specialists, Mark and

Carol—They are in charge of transition of data from outside to inside in terms of

supplies--take part in the research building itself rather than retrieving data from

their systems. This slowed down the process of mining information and eventually

it lower the quality of data than could have been achieved. Lesson learned, do not

make your external clients your co-workers because they are not held by the same

standards like you, rather use them as a way to clear out questions.

Notably, the involvement of stakeholders, IT members and other people have to

be carefully considered. A good way to find out the best way is to propose

questions to oneself, such as, what information do I need from them? To what

extend can I have them involved in research? Will this decision lower the quality of

the service? These questions are essential and help find the focus in the scope so

that the product could be passed down to the programming face with the correct

parameter of needs.

After facing this situation, where I could not obtain data in the proper manner with

the metrics that we usually follow, I encounter bad repercussions, because I had no

other options but to take the blame, although I knew that they had great part of

this unfortunate situation. Next time I will not do the procedure I took, and in case

of finding some pitfall, I will point it out beforehand rather than having no option

but to take the blame or wait until the last minute to point out these anomalies.

Another experience that I face was the implementation process of the tailored

programs provided by ClientSide. Some of our customers had been working with

different and very expensive software. Therefore, the transition process of getting

their data into the new program was a bit complicated. Despite the fact that we

have a very experienced team of programmers, it was still difficult to implement

the software. The main reason was the fact that their initial software had an specific

extension that needs to be changed or transformed. Therefore, in many cases,

depending on the software they were using, the transition could represent loss of

data that could be fatal for the project, for the client and for the company. So

instead of doing that I learned though the head of the programming team, Alex

Bliskov that decipher the extension was the best option. I felt this was impossible.

but he said in Linux nothing is impossible, This is where I saw the true power of

Linux. Although this process was extremely time, consuming at the end the all the

data was safety transferred and several copies of the original data with its

extension were kept.

Another Lesson that I learn was the importance of Supply Chain and the main

procurement that needs to be done in order to reduce prices on supplies delivered.

There are two main houses of supply chain method. In addition, the way they affect

inventory storerooms, par locations, shopping templates, surgery system

interfaces, vendor agreements, and more is very different. For instance, the one

method is for focused on the supply chain that comes from other bigger places like

hospitals and other manufacturing locations. This method deals with fewer details

and focuses more on the quantity rather than the quality of the product. Therefore

if the client wants a reduction of costs for an item whose quantity is more

important than quality, well, we have to find big locations that can do that for us.

The other method is more applicable to big clients and that is to see if we can come

up with a line of procurement that can reach even international locations where

quality is presented and a fair amount to quantity is generated. Hospitals that

request these types of studies ask several companies to bring their studies, many

times the studies of other companies collide with ours. When this happens we have

to change our pricing, but nowadays there are plenty of ways to do things so this

situation rarely happens. Therefore, we focus on alternative ways for finding the

best price for our clients, they usually give a week or two to come up with the best

research and if we win, we take the project for half the year until reevaluation is

needed. This is a tough project management aspect because is full of excitement

and stress. Fortunately enough my mentor and the president of the company is

incredibly smart and very hard working. He works side by side with you and helps

you with all you might need but it becomes intimidating because of his level of

intellect in the world of IT, Supply chain and business that makes you feel like you

should ask him only when the internet could not give you the answer in matters of

technicalities.

An important and 0meaningful learning experience I had relies on the

characteristics that a CEO needs to have in order to be successful in guiding the

company. Working with my mentor who is the CEO of the company was tough at

the beginning. I felt overwhelmed with the amount of tasks he gave me, but to my

surprise, he was all along working with me in person and remotely making sure I

learned and I understood what I was doing. I felt like a burden at the beginning but

later on, I felt that his support and opportunity of training was very much, what

made me improve. Of course, not everything was perfect. One of the challenges

was to figure out what he was thinking and often times that made me feel very

stupid, to this I learn that it is important to say “I don’t know” than pretending

otherwise. I encounter both situations and although I felt that I was going to lose

my job for saying too often, “I don’t know,” I would have lost it if I had done the

opposite of that.

Now I would like to relate some of my learning experiences I had at ClientSide with

the gospel. I feel there is a powerful message when we try to connect things to the

gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the first things I felt was the fact of working hard to

be able to see the big picture. What I mean is the fact that I felt that things I were

doing were not going to help me in my carrier, but after looking at the results I

found that this does help me in my carrier. Let me expand on it a little bit more, I

was working in a spiral/scrum environment and I did not know much effort to invest

in the scope, my boss suggested to work incrementally finding the unknown

knowns and unknown unknowns. In this process, I could not see the big picture and

I was wondering if all this was indeed going to help me in the future. Soon enough

there was a moment in our project that we understood better what to do after the

2 sprint or 2 deliverables. It seemed that we were able to see things better once

we took off and had a better distance of the project. Therefore, in this case there

are things that will be known better as you work through because it is impossible

to see everything even the big picture from the beginning.

Another thing I learned in relation to the gospel is that there are times in project

management and programming that are very scary. The principle of uncertainty is

very scary because if there is no proper planning then the time will be hunting you

and you might not even come to meet the deadline. This was very much, what was

happening to me as I was trying to finish the product and test it. But I think the

scariest part was that if there is not enough communication, the final product might

not be what the stakeholder wanted in the first place, so that would represent a

waste of time, money and effort and it will be very upsetting and extremely

discouraging to be part of something of this nature. The best solution is constant

communication and boldness regarding the understanding of the project. Even the

Gods as described by the book of Abraham portrays the constant communication

amongst themselves.

Another principle I learned related to the gospel was the importance of helping

your teammates just as Nephi did with Lehi, or Jared’s brother with his Jared

himself. This is very essential, sometimes there are team members that want to

place more input than others do. After all, some do more than others do. This

seemed to be the case, were I felt I was not putting too much input as my team

mates might have desired, but I was able to overcome that and soon enough I

thought in a way to help those that felt I me and the quick answer to this is constant

effective training. Not the training that asks you to read stuff, but the one that

makes you do things along with someone supervising you and correcting your

steps. This builds confidents and it feels good to see them feeling good.

As I was reading the book of Mormon I notice how captain Moroni was able to win

the battles that he faced but it was also his team that made a difference. This

relates to another principle I learned. When you are in a team, either you win as a

team or you lose as a team there is no individuals. Even in very homogenous teams

where the skill sets are fairly the same, I encountered situations where personal

circumstances affect the performance of the individuals and make it very difficult

for them to work. In this case, it is important that we notice those things and we

help comfort and cheer those going through difficult circumstances. After all, when

you do not let any of your men down the taste of success becomes more

meaningful. I felt like I was in a team that cared about me, because my teammate

and I try to help each other out in just about everything.

In addition, I really felt during my internship that I made to many mistakes and

perhaps short in the expectations my boss had of me. I felt discouraged but I

remembered how in the Book of Mormon there were many cases where

discouragement took at moments the hearts of those faithful, for instance, Alma

was in a similar process when he felt that everything he was doing was probably

making his own son further way from the church. The best way to fix this is to keep

on working hard but be teachable at the same time. As a potential project manager,

I needed to present myself as very teachable that included accepting my mistakes

and find ways to fix them. This was very uncomfortable but in the end, it was more

beneficial than anything else was.

After all, I felt that it was highly important to know the people that I worked with.

This principle helped me understand why sometimes the development of a project

gets stock. In behooves to the head of the project to see the different qualities and

cognitive abilities that each member of the team has. If I want to become a leader

I need to know the workable parameters of each individual, this will enable me to

to use each individual, regarding of the homogeneously of their skills, to function

better. A tool becomes a good tool when the user understands its functionality and

its limitations. This is, combined with principles of organization, leads to successful

outcomes and minimizes risk.

OBSERVATIONS

There were some tools that I used for my internship; at the beginning I was able to

use smartsheet. This is a web-based service that is very similar to Microsoft Project.

I was familiar with this tool due to the project management class I took which was

very helpful.

I think it would have been a very good idea to take the Excel class, at least for the

fact that I was very unfamiliar with some of the similar syntax found in Smart Sheet.

My boss felt a bit disappointed because he expected me to know at least the basic

functionality in excel, but most importantly, to be able to develop tools like

searching or finding out myself how things work instead of having him trying it

himself. After that, I started to do some tutorials and study excel for my own.

Later down in my internship I started building some SQL reports; however, despite

for the fact that I tried my best in that section to provide meaningful and

minimalistic reports, I did not have the understanding to how important would be

to use Microsoft SQL server management and SQL server business intelligence

development studio. This last one has fantastic tools to make reports and graphics.

This last one I was able to go thoroughly with the tutorials and I was able to get the

basic training that would help me to get by with all the reports.

To some extend it was a great idea taking the database class because it made me

get familiar with some of the basic concepts about databases and how they work.

I could have taken the optional database class instead of the other one because it

would have been very convenient to training on reports than anything else.

Regarding Project management, in general I felt that CIT 380 prepared me quite

well to encounter the demands of a project manager. During my internship, we had

to do some scrum development and the principles I learned in the class helped me

find my way around faster than the report building. My mentor Mr. Cameron

Iwaasa, allowed me to be in some of the phone meetings with the stakeholders. It

was incredibly overwhelming because they had so many acronyms that it seemed

like a very different language. After all, I felt that there so much to do that I felt

discouraged. I know that my mentor’s intention to let me hear these interviews was

because soon or later I will have to encounter something of this nature. I felt more

in harmony and with a more genuine desire of finding a way to balance things out.

There is one thing I could suggest to the company that hired me and that was to

have a much better relationship with its interns, so that they can feel comfortable

of coming over and ask if there have questions. In addition, I would suggest to have

a better instruction manuals.

On the bright side, my mentor was so intelligent and so ready for things; I was very

much inspired by him because he made me feel like he does deserve to be the

president of the company. There were times were I felt discouraged and I felt I was

not going to make it in to the IT sector but he was very patient and very kind with

me, nonetheless very straight forward when it comes to saying the truth. After all

my internship was a unique experience.

It made me see how much I need to learn and how little I knew about the basic skill

sets that an IT person must have. I felt after all in great debt with my mentor for

spending several hours personally training me.

CONCLUSION

Unfortunately, I cannot say that I benefited the company as much as it benefited

me. This is because of the fact that I learned much from all to what I was exposed

to. In reality, I tried my best to do all the things I was assigned to but I feel they

were expecting more and the truth to the matter is that there are wonderful tools

that I felt I learned better like SQL. I am not a professional in this regard but I think

I learned much about the program and also much about the business environment

where there are very specific guidelines and very specific goals that need to be

achieved. One of the primary reasons why I probably did not focus 100% was the

fact that I took quite difficult classes; I was traveling back and forth, church calling

and personal issues.

I am looking forward to get more experience. I believe my mentor is not going to

offer me more time with him and I think it is reasonable because they trained me

all the way through the internship process.

One of the things I noticed to be important was how necessary is to keep track of

work. In addition it is important to make weekly retrospectives and daily short

meetings to see where every stands and how everybody is doing. If this is not done

in the proper way side effects will quickly take place, many of them will represent

lack of evidence for work or in most cases workload not completed. It is also

important to get due dates, many of them might not even be respected but I will

indicate that the job should be thought out and developed within that period.

These are my three basic conclusions to this experience that I will never forget.