My Travel Map

Friday, November 13, 2009

My trip to Wadduwa

I just returned home after a 3 day South Asian Regional Workshop on Resource Mobilization. It was a good workshop as it took RM strategies to the next level and looked at operationalizing them. As Strategic Planning / Organization Development consultants we often highlight the strategy for resource mobilization; be it venture capital, angel fund or gearing in the private sector to institutional fund raising and linking with CSR in the development sector.

What was most interesting was the cases we went through, and going through a logical process which led to ones resource mobilization strategy. The workshop was facilitated by a retired general from the Indian army and he was a good facilitator who kept the attention of a group of 50 people for 3 days. It is important that we as consultants keep up with new trends as well as take time out to reflect on our ability to continually add value to our clients by increasing our body of knowledge.

We also learned of new ideas and trends in the field of resource mobilization and were very useful given the current global economic situation. Looking forward to taking the learning’s to my clients in the near future.

I also got a very small project in the financial services industry while I was at the workshop. It is from an old client who has the habit of not giving me too much lead time for projects: there goes my week end. So I am going straight to facilitating a strategy workshop in the financial industry over the weekend.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

My Trip to Batticaloa

This assignment required me to travel to Batticaloa which is in the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. The drive to Batticaloa is long (About 320 KM) but the killer is that it takes nearly 8 hours to get there. I left at 6.15 AM from Colombo and arrived at 2.15 PM in Batticaloa; stopping only for Breakfast and a cup of tea.

The assignment was 10 day evaluation of the management capacity of an organization who was delivering services to the people of the eastern province. The unique aspect of this assignment was that the client wanted to evaluate very specific aspects of its organization management structure, financial management, HR management, monitoring and communication systems. Therefore I had to customize the tools we used to a very high degree to ensure that the tools we used were compatible with the specific need. It also meant that this level of customization was a green field (Not done before so don’t know the pitfalls) this was further complicated by the fact that the execution of the assignment had to have a tri-linguistic person to facilitate the field work as well as translate at the synthesis workshop.

The assignment went in a smooth manner and it was well received by the employees of the organization. Generally management capacity evaluations can get tricky as some managers take it as a personal weakness and get very defensive.

I was surprised at the weather in Batticaloa and the amount of water on the ground. The roads that went through the lagoon were nearly inundated. Some of the shorter routs to Batticaloa were flooded so I had to travel via Polonnaruwa. In terms of the post war development in the east; I must say that all the reports regarding infrastructure development are correct and perhaps under reported. Road, bridge and utility projects are still going on and the whole of the eastern province looks like one giant construction site.

The fishing industry is booming in Batticaloa and the seafood prices are less than half of what it is in Colombo. So the team had seafood at every opportunity. The tourism industry has a demand but the number of rooms available seemed to be inadequate for the demand. There is a dire need for quality hotel rooms in Batticaloa. The availability of jobs would be the main social issue in the coming months as the construction industry starts to finish the construction projects.

I have to travel to Wadduwa (from Batticaloa) to attend the 6th South Asian Regional Workshop on Resource Mobilization which starts today; so will be on the road for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My Next Consulting Assignments

I am planning for several assignments from November to January. They will be in Sri Lanka; I will have to visit Yaphuwa, Dambulla, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara and Hambantota for the assignments. The assignments are organization assessments and evaluations. I am looking forward to traveling to the East of Sri Lanka as I have not been there during the last 6 months. Hope to see a big difference there. I have to fit in the assignments with the December holidays, it is going to be tough.

It is amazing how at the end of every year you get a rush of assignments that the client wants done before the end of the year. You also see a similar pattern in March as well. The same can also be said regarding requests for training.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad cont.....

The assignments are over and I am on my way home. The drive from Chilakaluripet to Vijayawada was uneventful; so was the flight back to Hyderabad. I had arranged to be picked up and was met at the airport; the drive back from the Hyderabad airport to my guest house was not usual as the vehicle I traveled did not have air conditioning. So my senses were overloaded by the melting pot that is India; the sights, the sounds and the smells greeted me along the way to my guest house. The only disconcerting factor was the pollution levels. The smoke from the vehicles combined with the dust that they kicked up hung as an orangish grey cloud over the city. There were times that I found it difficult to breathe so had to cover my mouth and nose.

On reaching my guest house I packed all my bags and turned in for the night as I had to get up at 3.30 AM to start my last leg of the journey. Before turning in I had spoken to the driver who was supposed to drive me to the air port in the morning. As a matter of caution I obtained his mobile number for contingencies. He faithfully promised to be there at 4.20 AM to drive me to the airport. The plan was that I had to be at the airport one hour before (Domestic flight from Hyderabad to Chennai) and it took one hour to drive to the airport.)the scheduled time of 6.20 AM

The next morning I was ready by 4.20 and SMSed the driver; then came 4.30 still no driver. I got a bit concerned since we had not planned for any delays. So I went to the security post of the compound and hailed the security. As usual the security guard was huddled up in a corner of the security hut fast asleep. I woke him up and found that he did not speak a word of English. So using sign language and my broken Hindi/Urdu managed to convey the situation to him; finally he got on his bike (Literally) and went and woke the driver who slept in the other corner of this large compound.

I left for the airport around 4.50 AM and made it on time for the flight. The rest of the journey went as scheduled and without incident. I am back at home; and finishing all my reporting before the next assignment.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad cont.......

Wow what an assignment! I must say that I have experienced similar assignments in the past in other sectors. However for this sector (development sector) it was a first. As a consultant you have to be on guard all the time when doing an Organization Capacity Assessment (Very similar to a “Due Diligence” in the private sector); if the client wants to mislead you, it can be done quite easily. In my case I was confronted with just that.

Things that should look out for are:

  1. Uniformity in questioners
  2. Having sets of files pre prepared for you (always ask for random files)
  3. When interviewing staff they have uniform answers or say very similar things (always ask to speak to random sample of staff and triangulate your findings; include speaking to other stakeholders as they will be a be useful source of information)
  4. Taking a long time to locate files and other documents when you request for them
  5. Key staff suddenly taking ill and not being available for interviews
  6. Acting “stupid” or not seem to understand what you are requesting for or saying

These things must be handled very diplomatically otherwise you will not be able to complete the assignment. Do not have a “knee jerk” reaction, observe very well and collect enough specific examples so that you have a basis for doubting what is presented to you. At the same time you must see if this deception is systematic or simply put up for this occasion.

If it is systemic you now have a real problem; you will not be able to decipher what is “genuine” and what is “false.” My recommendation is at this point you should seek clarifications from the person who hired you as well as speaking to the decision makers of your client. A temporary halt to the assessment will be in order to do this discretely. Suggest you take prudent steps based on your clients feedback.

However if you feel it is a put up for this particular assessment then your task is easier and it should be handled with the management of the organization that you are assessing. (Don’t forget you still need to advice your client regarding this unexpected turn of events) As this would be difficult situation for some consultants to handle; I suggest a cautious but a very direct approach. This will reduce the space for excuses by the staff. Since it will come as a surprise to them the staff of the organization you are assessing will also not be able to gang up on you to defend themselves. Make sure that you do not engage in a long dragged out discussion, be short and to the point. If handled properly it should bring about normalcy to the process.

If however you do not feel comfortable to take a direct approach you must then document both versions of the process i.e.

  1. The results that are shown by the staff of the organization
  2. Your observations and reservation of those results

This however will not be very useful in the end; as it will not provide the right results to take decisions the assessment was supposed to deliver in the first place. In some rare cases you may need to repeat the assessment to get the right results.

In my case it was the latter and I did confront the staff and the management regarding it. There was an attempt to defend the position but it was not successful; things returned to an acceptable level of normalcy and I was able to complete the assignment.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont.......

Again it was a day of travel for me. The flight from Hyderabad to Vijayawada was uneventful. I was able to see some of the flooding in the vicinity of the airport from the flight as it came in to land. I also observed another interesting thing, I saw large agricultural plots. (Not always seen in Asia) It looked like there was mechanized farming going on or they were using low cost labour but cultivating on large plots. Either way the economies of scale will start to yield better profits for these farmers. It looks like the effort of the late chief minister of AP who was in to agriculture has had some success.

After landing I had to get to Chilakaluript (2 hours by road) to reach the client. I am at there guest house preparing for tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont.......

The organization assessment went as anticipated without major issues. However an old issue popped up on the last day (3rd Day). This is; including new people mid way through a process.

When facilitating a group on any matter you need to facilitate at a sophistication level which is understood by everybody. I must say that some consultants call it sophistication level while others call it abstraction level yet others call it conceptualization, complexity etc. The point is when doing a self assessment we assume that the participants have the same understanding of the terms and concepts used in the assessment tool as well as they have the background knowledge to quickly fill in the blanks and understand new things. However this is never the case (That’s why we need a facilitator) and the facilitator needs to facilitate using language and terms, which is commonly understood by all. This was the case for the first 2 days. On the last day it was decided to increase the number of participants to have a wider input to the process. Even though my gut instinct and experience told me that this would not be such a good idea, I held my thoughts as there were other “buy in” issues to consider.

This meant that we brought in people

a) who were of a lower level in the organization; thereby inevitably with a lower sophistication level.

b) who had no idea regarding what has happened in the past 2 days; or a pissed off at being left out

c) who needed a lot of time to grasp what is going on; or who do not have a high degree of commitment to the process

At the same time what happens with the people who were there from the beginning is that

a) they tend to get board quickly

b) they become impatient and overwhelm the new comers

As a result you loose the momentum of the process and you have to deal with new group dynamics which is invariably unpredictable.

It was funny for me to watch this happening as I went through the day. Some of the participants from the crowd that was there from the first day were even using hand gestures asking the new lot to hold back; while other voiced their opinion even when others showed impatience or dismissive gestures.

What was indeed tough was to establish the new sophistication level of the new group. In fact I don’t think I was able to settle at any level for any length of time on the 3rd day. The group was now so diverse that when discussing one issue they seem to get it very quickly but with others it was completely different some would get it but the others simply could not comprehend. Therefore there was this constant shifting of the level of sophistication required to understand a concept

The end result was that what was planned for half a day now took one whole day. This is acceptable as this meant that a similar level of quality was maintained right through out the assessment process. The danger is that some consultants may be tempted to rush through which might compromise the quality as well as alienate the participants.

So all in all it was an interesting assignment with some learning’s and reinforcement of some do’s and don’ts.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont

The day of leisurely travel to Hyderabad turned in to an interesting experience for me. Here’s how it went.

There were of course no issues in getting to the Airport or getting checked in. At the checking counter I asked the Jet Airways staff if there were any restrictions of taking a bottle of liquor to India. At which point I was told “NO SIR”. When I checked in however they were unable to check my baggage through to Hyderabad since I was changing from International to Domestic (Still Jet Airways) I was told that I need to put my bag through customs at Chennai.

Things went smoothly from there; got through Immigration, went and bought 500ML bottle of Black Label, went through security, boarded and arrived in Chennai on time. Jet airways must be congratulated for on time flights between Colombo and Chennai. Their service too was quite good.

Things turned in to a big process when I got to Chennai. First I had to go through Immigration, it was smooth, then through Customs, also no issue, then physically had to come out of the International Terminal and go in to the Domestic Terminal. I was told that Jet Airways staff would be there to guide the transfer passengers, however there were no staff and there were no sings to direct. I asked for instructions and got to the Jet Airways counter without any trouble. Yes I did change some money as well. At which point I was told that I need to put my luggage through the security scanner again so had to Drag my bag to the end of the terminal and re-put the bag through the security scanner (X-Ray) then had to come back and join the line to check the bag in for a second time. Luckily there weren’t many passengers in line. While I was doing this I was also carrying the Duty Free Bag with the bottle of liquor inside it and in plain sight of the Jet Airways staff.

So I checked in the bag and went to the Taj Restaurant to quench my thirst; well things really went wrong there, apparently for some Gandhi commemoration the bar was closed. I thought I was back in Sri Lanka where for any frivolous thing they close all the bars. Never mind survived on a cool fresh lime soda.

When it was time for me to go through the security to board the domestic flight I had to put all my hand luggage again through the security… nothing new I guess. Then came the surprise they said “Sir you cant take wine in the plane, you have to put it into the main luggage” I promptly pointed out to the security guy that I am connecting from a International flight and that I did bring the bottle on board as hand luggage and I was told that it was allowed by the airline staff the time of boarding. “No sir it is not allowed in domestic flights” came the answer right back at me. Knowing not to argue with them went back to the counter. Then the fun started….. apparently the process was that they had to get my checked in luggage out of the cargo container put the bottle back in to the check in luggage then re scan the luggage through the X-Ray machine and so on. No drink can be worth all that trouble. They also agreed with me that the bottle might break in the luggage and I will have to wear a whiskey perfume during my stay in India.

So I was on the verge of throwing the bottle down the drain when one of the assistants who help with the luggage suggested to the girl at the counter to check the bottle in as a separate piece of luggage. That was funny; I had a grin in my face because it sounded ridiculous. But guess what, he got a small box put the bottle in, taped it up, put fragile stickers on it, and got the girl to weigh it. Guess what, the scale returned a value of zero kilograms. I thought now they are going to make a fuss again, but to my surprise no they checked in a weight of 2 KG the minimum weight of a check in luggage (Good to know I thought) and gave me a baggage tag. So I thought this is all going to be a waste as the bottle is surly going to break. So deciding to ignore a package with a streak of whiskey behind it at the Hyderabad Airport baggage belt went through the security and got in to the boarding area.

Then came the next surprise, the flight was delayed for two and a half hours. Man now I know why they don’t allow liquor in the domestic flights as they are apparently always delayed and they don’t want disgruntled customers having a few to get over their frustrations of having to wait for an eternity. Well that is the consensus of the few guys I got chatting to.

Finally the plan did arrive and I made it to Hyderabad. Went to collect the luggage and to my surprise the small box did make it intact. When I saw that it brought a grin to my face so get to the hotel and yes had a drink and went to sleep. So now from tomorrow morning I will be busy with the assignment. Looking forward to it.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont......

Today I am leaving to Hyderabad for the assignment. Funny, there seems to be a lot of things that we do when doing an overseas consulting assignment but don’t really talk about it. The stuff we do for preparation has two parts

Things considered as part of consulting process
Marketing, prospecting and selling
Proposal, budget & contract
Invoicing and receiving advance payment
Preparation / Intake


Things that are part of the consulting process but gets taken for granted
Requesting Invitation Letter to process visa
Applying for visa
Travel & Medical Insurance
Foreign Exchange
Transport to and from Airport – in your country and the country you are visiting
Travel advice regarding security, weather etc

I addition it is up to the consultant to find out about interesting things in the city s/he visits. In my experience some assignments will give you a bit of time in the evenings and it can be boring to be stuck in a hotel all the time. Suggest the web or lonely planet for this.

Also rule of thumb is exchange a bit of money at the airport itself. Trust me you will spend more time and money in trying to look for better exchange rates.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont......

I just collected my visa and the tickets and all the travel documents, now need to prepare for the assignment. As we will be using the USAID OCA (Organization Capacity Assessment) Tool I need to print it out and get the details top of mind so that I can facilitate the assessment smoothly.

I was quite skeptical regarding the tool at first but when I sat through the initial tot project in the Netherlands I quickly changed my mind. Dr Rebecca Furth of Initiatives Inc did a good job of introducing the tool as well as facilitating the discussions regarding lessons learned during using the tool. However I still have my doubts regarding using it as a participatory tool.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Trip to Hyderabad Cont....

Well there are scheduling issues so will go to get my ticket & visa on thursday. Everything else is back on schedule. Trying to contact some of my friends who are in India so that we may be able to meet over there.

I have been doing this job since 2002 and travelling overseas since then; however this trip will be my first time on a budget airline. Dont know what to expect? When I got my online booking it said Meal - To be purchased. some how flying and buying your food did not sound OK to me. I am sure that what ever my first choice is it will be over by the time the airline staff get to me.

Anyway need to finish up all the stuff for today to be able to watch the opening match between Sri Lanka & South frica (ICC Trophy)

Monday, September 21, 2009

The trip to Hyderabad India

I am starting my next assignment on the 3rd of October 2009 in Hyderabad India. This will be my 4th trip to India in the last 2 years. Going to india is a funny thing for me as I cant wait to get there. Once I am there I get the feeling that I need to get back home (Sri Lanka) soon.

I have applied for my visa nd waiting to collect it. will do it tomorrow.