An update from the 2017 graduates

Hello,

Welcome to the first 2018 edition of the Project Practice Graduate blogs. In the last blog we had finished our rotation in the international team and were shortly to be heading off into the Christmas break.   I am writing this now as we end our time rotating around the business and are eagerly taking up roles on our first projects.

First off and an introduction to myself. I studied Management at the University of Hertfordshire, during this I spent a year’s internship working for Hewlett Packard which sparked my interest in the technology sector.  Whilst at, and then having left University I took a role in the public sector working for the emergency services, which was extremely eye opening to say the least.  This gave me the opportunity to see a world of extremes, the happiest moments in life and the not so.    On a personal note, I enjoy spending time with Family and Friends, who you’ll find me with most of the time. More recently I have taken up going on a number of camping holidays and spending my free time (when the weathers nice) to be outdoors.

From a work life perspective I find it fascinating how technology is rapidly changing the world we live in. The new opportunities it brings, and in fact some of the fundamental improvements it can make whether that be in peoples working or private lives.  I have always wanted a career that is focused around people and customers, so project management fits quite nicely into this.  I could see an opportunity to progress and succeed and so far with everyone that I have come to pass, and those that have invested their time in the programme, this has become ever apparent.

The past six months, which having read earlier blogs from my colleagues, would have given you an insight to the areas of the business we have undertaken.  Our time with various areas of the business will be invaluable during our future with Computacenter.  It is only now going onto projects that the true value of getting a guided tour around a large proportion of Computacenter will show its true worth in allowing us to be effective and of value to both our colleagues and our customers.  For me this is what the rotations have been about.

With the initial rotations around the business at an end I feel it best to thank everyone that has given up their time to input into the programme so far, there were many of you! So thankyou! On behalf of all the grads on the programme.

Our most recent and last rotation was with Service Management.  I was lucky enough to join the team for three weeks at HSBC. This gave a real insight into how we engage with our customers on managed service engagements. On a personal note a thankyou Ed Kwok for your time over the 3 weeks!

My first project is internally within the Group Managed Services (GMS) focusing on cloud and automation which I was looking forward to.  I am ending my fourth week on the project whilst writing this blog. So far, so good. The project so far has given me the opportunity to understand GMS further and in addition to this develop my understand around how Computacenter delivers outcomes for our customers through the managed services we provide.  Not being technical by any measure this has allowed me to broaden my technical knowledge in the automation space.

From my personal perspective and that I am sure my colleagues on the programme would agree with, is that now, being on our first project within our first teams outside of Project Practice it is nice to be able to ‘Earn our Stripes’. On that note I will leave it there, the next entry will come from James Gale.

 

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Thomas Darwin