Collaboration required...

Second Day

“The” model got a once over by an important stakeholder, i.e. the school Administrator, Fabrice. It was a useful and robust discussion as Fabrice was able to identity another step in the model that would be useful to the school. After this healthy discussion, I fiddled about a little bit more on the model. Thereafter, Fabrice and I tested out this improved model and he seems quite happy with it. I showed him how to search for a particular piece of music for a certain grade… AND… it …works!  Woo hoooo…

I explained to Fabrice that the model is now fully designed (until further refinements are required). He has identified 2 EMDB personnel who will now take this on board. I will therefore transfer the model on to the school’s server and I will go over the saving and backing up procedures in due course. Fabrice will teach the school personnel that he had identified and will take ownership of the database from now. I explained to Fabrice that doing it this way gives him and his helpers plenty opportunities to test the model while I am here.

I will write a “How to” manual in French, then it’s done! Over the next 3 and bit weeks, I will still be on hand to deal with any adjustments as may be required. In a way, I hope that there will be adjustments needed, as I would then be able to coach the personnel here how to deal with these as well.

I am very pleased how this first assignment had gone: collaboration at its best (between the 2 end users, i.e. the school and one of the Donor's principal representative, Professor Janet Anthony, of BLUME Haiti and me, an AfID volunteer, the designer) . And the school seems to understand  my approach and where I am coming from…

Next thing on my “To Do” list is the preparation of the agenda for the first formal management meeting between the school and me, as prescribed by AfID. Talk about doing things back to front, but then I think that is my trademark – strictly no comments please!

OK, it is still only 20 minutes past noon now but my day’s work is nearly done ;-) I shall go back to the house shortly and slap on even more Deet stuff. The little b***** of mosquitoes seem to find my blood very sweet. Maybe, they too, are partial to “Prestige”?