| TYPICAL WEEK IN OUR LIVES |
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MATTHEW BIRCH Analyst "Currently part of a team tasked with improving the GSM performance in key strategic locations across the network: the week’s objective is to understand the progress and impact of the ongoing work, and to help guide further efforts and prioritization with analysis of performance data..” |
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DAY ONE |
| 8:00 | MORNING |
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Wake-up and get ready to head to the client's offices. Luckily for me the head-office is only 2km away from home so there's no fighting with traffic.
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| 9:00 |
TEAM MEETING |
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After some brief chat about our weekends we get into the nuts and bolts of "the definition of victory" for the week's work
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| 11:00 | REVIEW REPORTS |
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Review network performance reports from the weekend with the client project manager who I've been working in concert with; identify some areas that warrant investigation
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| 13:00 |
LUNCH |
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Quick lunch as Tashas Café nearby - great food and atmosphere (wouldn't be complete without a machiato to finish)
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| 14:00 |
MEETING WITH PROCUREMENT |
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Discuss the terms around vendor resolution of network faults - this appears to have been slow in the past: why?
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| 18:00 |
BACK TO DELTA OFFICE |
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Katie asks for some assistance with network material that features in the Sales side of the project so I meet up with her back at base to discuss
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| 21:00 |
HOME |
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Time to head home to whip up a quick meal and watch some series before sleep
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DAY TWO |
| 09:00 |
OFFICE |
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Morning emails. Trusty coffee in hand I catch up on the morning's emails.
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| 10:00 |
FOLLOW UP ON DATA REQUEST |
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Follow up on data request from the network stats department. CEO meeting tomorrow so I need to get started on "crunching the numbers"
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| 12:00 |
LUNCH |
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Sushi today at Koi. Sometimes their service is a bit slow so I phone the team's order in ahead to speed things up.
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| 14:00 |
PROCESSING |
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Data is too big to email, so I go pick it up on a memory stick. Time to get processing.
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| 17:00 |
ANALYSIS COMPLETE |
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Now to consolidate into a couple of update slides for the CEO Meeting tomorrow
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| 20:00 |
FEEDBACK SESSION |
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Run the slides past my manager: I need to make a few minor changes and then I can call it a day
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DAY THREE |
| 09:00 |
REVIEW |
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Review of update slides with client project manager to make sure we're aligned before they're presented to the CEO. Improvement since last week has been significant!
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| 11:00 |
PRIORITISATION |
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I dive back into the network stats to get a deeper understanding of where the technical team's focus should be concentrated in the coming weeks
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| 14:00 |
LUNCH |
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Getting lost in the numbers I almost don't notice the time. My manager and the rest of the team are in the exec meeting so I go grab a quick bite to eat on my own.
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| 17:00 |
DEBRIEF AFTER MEETING |
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The sits to discuss the outcome of the meeting. Progress in my stream was well received, and some good questions were raised that I plan to investigate.
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| 19:00 | CONTRACTS |
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Procurment emails me some contract excerpts relating to the vendor resolution - looks like I've got my bed-time reading cut out for me tonight.
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| 20:00 | ALL-HANDS MEETING |
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Quick catchup with the full team across the streams. It's really interesting to hear what's happening across the company.
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| 21:00 | DINNER |
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Pick up takeaway on the way home
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DAY FOUR |
| 09:00 |
BRAIN STORMING |
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Brainstorming on dinner ideas - it's my job to organise the weekly team dinner and there's restaurant nearby that a friend recommended. Sounds good. Send out details to the team and make a reservation for 20h30
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| 9:30 |
INTERNAL MEETING |
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Meet with my manager to discuss some points from the previous night's reading - decide to get some input from the ops team
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| 12:00 |
MEETING |
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Meeting with Exec-head of operations in the SMC: feels like NASA in here. This is where the network's vitals are monitored real-time. Resolution: dig deeper into fault resolution times
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| 13:00 |
LUNCH |
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Lunch at the local grill. Steak and salad (gotta watch the consulting waist-line!)
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| 18:00 | DATA ANALYSIS |
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the requested data for analysing fault resolution times earlier in the day has now been received - set-up meeting for tomorrow to discuss content with one of the operations staff.
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| 20:00 |
DINNER |
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Team Dinner - restaurant turns out to be a big hit with the rest of the team.
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DAY FIVE |
| 9:00 |
OFFICE |
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Come into the Delta office and start preparing questions for meeting later with Client Operations.
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| 11:00 |
CLIENT SITE |
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Meet client at the client site - very helpful in understanding the fault log.
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| 13:00 |
LUNCH |
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I get a quick sushi takeaway for lunch so that I can get stuck into analysing the fault log data.
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| 16:00 |
ANALYSIS |
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First pass at analysis complete - discuss and brainstorm some ideas for further analysis.
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| 18:00 |
SLIDES |
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Make a first effort at sketching some slides detailing the intitial findings from the issues log. There are some long out-standing faults - drop client a mail to make some time Monday to discuss. Send slides off to DTP (Desk Top Publishing) for their special touch at formatting.
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| 19:00 |
PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND |
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Off to the local pub with some colleagues (some from the Dubai office who I haven't seen in a while).
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