After a good sleep, we arrived around 10 at the Accenture building (Bang7). Most Accenture colleagues start later to match the Dutch times, so when we were visiting the bay, it was still quite peaceful. Very nice to see is all KPN posters and goodies, most of them provided by Bouke. Also very cool to see the comics hanging on the wall. They were bigger than expected and what a fun that must have been for Theo and Tanja to see one of the products of Customer Awareness in real! In the meanwhile Vijay got loose from the traffic and arrived at the office.

In the morning the KPN and Netco goals were explained again, but now to all teamleads. A big group and also a good opportunity to show the Pin movie of the concept how we are tackling big Problems with cutting them into small Problems which can be easier to dealt with. First feedback we got back is that it helps explaining the KPN goals as well to understand what everyone @KPN is busy about. But also how/if improvement ideas from India can help accomplishing them. We explained how KPN and especially Netco is organized and how things are expected to shift in the coming months. But also how they could affect IDC. For example the integrating with E2E, would mean much more efficiency and clearance. (sorry for all KPN abrevations). Actionpoint for me is now to explain which PCM’s are hanging under which manager and who’s responsible for what (process mostly). Because IDC is especially organized per process focus within the matrix.

Important topics that were showed/explained to us the way IDC is handling proactive monitoring. Firstly by doing the manual checklist in the morning, when most Dutch people still sleep. That way, some problems can already be found & solved, before any customers or agents notice. This includes even starting new orders to check whether the orderflow is still working. When the manual check is working and successful, they are meant to be automated with the possibility to higher the frequency and delivering reports from the results. Really impressive how this now works at the Fiver chain (Great work Vijay P, Nisha & Richa)!

Other creative and smart result was the Dashboard that was created from ServiceNow data. We are waiting since Novembre for a solution from the Project, and IDC has already made it their selves (Vijay & Chaithanya). How cool is that. It can include even alerting, which we also lack at this moment.

Other topic of the day was Monitoring. I could explain/show how we are using Ymor, which may lead to some bright ideas from IDC. We also discusses the open points for JointVerification, but they were lostly already tackled last week. The open points are already added to the Robuustness list for 2014.

We also discussed the impact on AM for the change to Agile Innovation for Telfort. There may be some risks that aren’t covered enough which Marcel en I need to discuss with Bert next week.

In between, the diner was again perfect. But also very heavy. What was also told, that to eat this food during daytime, is not that common. I can understand, there is so much to taste and everything tastes different and delicious. Gaining weight is very easy in India… I don’t know how Bouke and Lo deal with this with a long stay in India, must be with a lot of exercises J.

It’s so nice to see how the team and Marcel are interacting which eachother. I’m glad we are here to help and listen to the colleagues that are making it happen for our customers. As already expected, there is so much drive/intelligence/creativity  that can and will things improve.

In the evening we went out for dinner with Rashmi and Ashish @Fisherman’s Wharf. First time we weren’t asked if the food might be served a little less spicy. And we noticed haha. But with some water and other drinks, this was easy to handle J. Thx for the nice evening!

Last night we arrived late at the hotel, fortunately Ad was waiting at us with 2 drinks allthough the bar was about to close..2bad it was for both of us a little hard to fall asleep after the long and busy day. With breakfast @9, we stept into the cab @10, bringing us just to the Accenture building on the other side of the street. A street which I never would dare to cross with all the traffic crisscrossing from left to right etc...

In the office we were welcomed with below artwork, made of rise. I first thought this was always present there, but then we got explained, it was especially made for us! What an honor!

We met JP and Vijay & Ritesh again, they were in Holland last year. With lunch all RACI leads were invited to and it was especially very nice to meet Rashmi again :). Also good to meet Vijay and Vivek again. The diner was great. Problem with Indian food is, there is so much to try/taste, that you wuld never accomplish that in 1 diner/lunch. Unless you would not eat first for a week, but that’s not gonna happen. Hmm, maybe it would be better after this week to give it a try… So much, even as vegetarian, there is so much variation (but I'm not gonna become one..).

During the day we had very good sessions, following as much the last week aligned agenda as possible. We could explain the expectations for the Telfort Internet migration to Telfort Fiber, where the timelines are ambitious. Other subjects were the KPN and Netco goals and how they are translated to ItOps. We will repeat this for the teamleads as well, to give a little understanding where everyone in Holland is busy about. JP explained the way how IDC is organized at AM, really impressive and how ServiceIntergration is essential. I’m convinced that if this is successful, the quality will even become better. Better than we are capable to do ourselves.

For the evening, a diner was held for the Telfort team (incl test) in BQ Nation. I already heard good stories about it from Sandra and they were true! And again, to much to try… The evening was very good and what we are again very surprised about, how open everybody is. Which is good and I’m looking forward for the ideas from the teams in the coming days.

Finally we arrived again around 23 in the hotel again. After doing some emails (finally access), and a call to home, it was offcourse again much to late to go to sleep. Looking forward to day2! Vijay said a ServiceNow dashboard is in development, that means we will become less dependent on others to deliver it.

At this moment, our first working day in India is almost finished. Currently we are waiting at the airport for our flight to Bangalore. We arrived 2 hours before the flight is going in the air, so we're on time. Now some coffee after the crowded ride in a real Renault Mahindra cab with a burning signal which often means you have to go for some gas.

Anyway, the visit to the Atos Bridge team was very successful. Happy to thank them for the work and results of last months and Lo arranged tasty cake to celebrate it! The team deserved it and it was really nice to meet them and see and feel the commitment and involvement. Marcel and I were able to explain the KPN goals and translating them into the Netco ItOps goals. Including what the Atos Bridge team can mean in the reduction of amount and downtime of P1's. We could also show what results we accomplished last year and how Atos contributed to that. And what a good opportunity, to show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghFbmNIf09k&feature=youtu.be
It was very good that Sandeep and Yashwant were there, they came especially for our visit from Pune to Mumbai. Glad to meet Lo as well who also resides as Sourcing Manager from KPN in Pune normally.

If you look at the Atos Bridge, I certainly expect an increase of monitoring requirements/extensions as the model is promising and I haven't seen this yet at other suppliers. This despite the fact that there was a code Orange going on with impact on the datacenter Bussum so we couldn't finish the demo. The direction I had in mind for specific monitoring about scheduled tasks, is now changed and we will implement this in The Bridge monitoring (maybe even transfer others).

And indeed it's all about relationships. If we don't invest in such visits and working on the relations, we will never meet our own expectations about outsourcing. It's a 2 way obligation. Again today brought up some simple things, where we can help in arranging things, which can help the team becoming more efficient. Thinking of arranging instructions about ServiceNow, explaining the added value of analyses of Bridge data to prevent issues and helping in business cases for improvements, but there may be some improvements possible around processes. Today I promised cake for the first proposal for improvements based on the analysis of data. And I don't expect that we'll have to wait long for that :).

At first, sorry it took that long to write this article, but we reaaaaaally had to pay enough attention to it off course! Fortunately, I had written down the stories in short when we were in India, in case of memory failure.

Anyways! After a good night of sleep, we took the cab from the hotel and drove to Yashwant and his friend Apoorva to pick them up. At the hotel a wedding was being prepared, maybe we would be back in time to experience something of it. My room was looking out at the park where the big party was being build up and it looked great already with all the colors and flowers.

It was really nice to see Yashwant again. Yashwant lived with his wife for almost 2 years in Holland, so we knew each other already well. As said, Yashwant asked his friend Apoorva to show us around as he had lived already for years in Mumbai. (Yashwant normally resides in Pune). And what a perfect day! Not to warm, and with a cooling wind blowing from the sea and with traffic (it was a Sunday), the day was great for sightseeing!

Below a short summary of the things we saw, at the picasa link, you can see the pictures:

Heritage Buildings
We drove by some big buildings from the colonial time. Although with a little delay in Maintenance, still impressive. I wonder how they looked when the were build. We took a peak at the Railway station . Next time, maybe try a train ride?

Small Market
We visited a small market, where you could buy all kinds of fruits, animals, fresh food, spices etc. It remembered me to China. Really nice!

Gateway to India
Impressive Arc nearby the sea. Quite crowded with people having a day off. On the background the Taj Hotel where a couple of years the terrorist attack was. Quite impressive.. We went on a boat trip, with a perfect view of Mumbai! It’s also possible to visit Elephant island, we didn’t do that.

Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat (the laundry area)
A lot of concrete blocks filled with laundry and everywhere hanging laundry to dry. Hard to imagine that clothes will get clean there, but with the lot of same clothes from companies, it has to be good I guess? And also hard to imagine, that the people living here, are really rich because if the land the own and live on. This area has a real high ground price.

Haji Ali (Mosque)
A Mosque situated in the sea with a small walkway of half a kilometer. Even with high tide, the Mosque will stay dry. I think we were the only white people visiting. But it was that crowded, we didn’t enter the Mosque. Quite a contrast: A lot of beggars along the road, with the tall office buildings in the back.

Bollywood buildings
Along the coast, we saw some houses from famous Bollywood actors/actresses with a lot of people waiting to see a glimpse of them. And we even visited the walk of fame with all the big Bollywood stars!

Mani Bhavan Gandhi Museum
The house where Ghandi used to live in, was turned into a museum explaining everything about his live. Very interesting to read about, what an impressive and humble man Ghandi must have been. And did you know that the current flag of India is actually improved by Ghandi with the colors and the spinning wheel.

Jain Temple
A beautiful and colorful temple where at that moment a ceremony was held. Yashwant and Apoorva even got an envelope with money! And a car outside a wheel boot haha.

Further
Along the day, we saw much more. A horse race course, the hanging gardens, the real new highway and huge bridge over the sea. We got some great coffee at the seaside, we ate some fantastic food (and Indian Kingfisher beer) in a modern café. After buying news slippers, we ate some delicious cheese cake at a bakery, hmmm.

At the end of the day, we went for a great diner at the Saffron Spice restaurant. Yashwant his wife also came, really nice to have finally met her! The food was great, although a little bit spicy, something to get used to in the coming days haha. During the diner, India lost an important cricket game from Pakistan.

It was a great day, and how lucky we were that Apoorva and Yashwant showed us around! We couldn’t have picked a better company and day! So thx, if you’re reading this guys (and girl).

Arriving late at the hotel, the wedding was already finished. I was actually happy about it, tired of walking and all of the Mumbai experiences, it was time to go to bed! Next day the visit to Atos was planned, so we had to be fresh again!

Last night, we arrived around 23 at the beautiful new airport of Mumbai. After some floor changes, we found the taxi that brought us to the Renaissance hotel. Even at that time, the city was crowded with cars, riksha's and motorbikes! Unfortunately, we could not see that much because it was already dark. The airco in the car with 22 C seemed cold :).

At the arrival at the hotel, we received a flower necklace and dot on our forehead by a lovely lady. A little bit tired and without sleep in the plane, Marcel and I decided to set the alarmclock around 9 and then meet with Yashwant to do some sightseeing. Strange that we were going to bed at almost the same time as our kids in Holland :).

I personally woke up around 7, a little 2 early knowing everybody in NL was still sleeping this Sunday mornng :). But then again, 6 hours sleep should be enough for today and I'm to curious to see/smell/taste and taste Mumbai!

Below my view from the hotelwindow, isn't it great? In te garden you can see the preparations for a marriage later this week.

The Blog page is created, now counting the days to leave for India!