Tutto bene!

Here we are, Stefano and I on the way back from Milano to Lausanne. We were lucky to get onboard one of the new fancy trains with airplane seats, power plugs and a restaurant that serves fresh-brewed coffee. It makes life so wonderfully comfortable.

We have been in Milano to talk to Father Kizito - founder of the Koinonia organization - and to the Amani organization - the primary source of funding for Koinonia . We felt that it was important that they also knew about the things both we and Koinonia had been through, so they can provide Koinonia with the optimal support. Our message was well received and we now only need to debrief with the MBA2008 class to bring the project to an end. That meeting is planned for Friday.

Stefano is from Milano, so we stayed with his parents while there. Here it is from left Fratello Stefano, Sorella Marta, Papá Fabrizio, Mamma Marina and one of their guest for the day. Gerald Lo was also there, but is unfortunately not captured here. We really enjoyed the hospitality of the family and the excellent cooking of Mamma Marina. It was a piece of Italy, like taken out of a movie.

The Giussani family lives in a charming high-ceiling apartment in central Milano. Stefano is the 4^th consecutive generation engineer in the family and surprised us by showing his hidden talent on the family’s piano!

It was also quite an experience for a northerner like myself to experience another of Stefano’s talents: Some real Italian driving in Milan rush-hour traffic! I know now why the Italians produce such great race cars: It is in their blood!

Ciao!

Thorsten

A picture from Kenya on Friday after we had our last workshop. These are the people from Koinonia and IMD that formed the core team during the project.

Ruslana and Eva under a beautiful purple-flowered tree at the Karen Blixen house just outside Nairobi.

Out of Africa

We finished our assignment in Kenya on Friday afternoon and started our journey back already the same evening. We had a few hours to spend before the flight, so Gerald and Stefano went to one of the rescue centers to spend some time with the kids, while Ruslana, Eva and I wanted to see the Karen Blixen museum. Karen Blixen, who is one of the most famous Danish writers, spent a good part of her life in Kenya. You may have seen her in the movie 'Out of Africa' which is about her life in Africa. She had a farm at the foot of Ngong hills and today that whole area - the south west outskirts of Nairobi - is simply called Karen.

Eva and Ruslana are tough negotiators and decisive women, so since they could not agree with the taxi driver on a proper price for our trip to the Karen Blixen house they decided that we should go by Matatu. Matatus are small jam-packed vans that the locals use to get around. They are very inexpensive, but in terms of comfort and security they leave a lot room for improvement. The ride was an interesting experience and we eventually made it to our destination, or so we thought. Instead of being in the museum, we had ended up in Karen Blixen's house, which had been turned into a restaurant and coffee bar. It was too late to try to get to the museum, so instead we sat down and enjoyed a good Kenyan coffe and the biggest slices of chocolate cake I have ever seen.

Less than 24 hours later I was attending my Grandmas funeral in Denmark. A lot of people had showed up and the whole family was there. Although it was no fun to carry the coffin out then I still felt that I had been through the worst when I had visited her in the hospital the week before. I had said my goodbye and now we were 'just' completing the journey with her. She left with dignity and in the evening the whole extended family gathered for dinner at my uncle and aunt's place, so for one last time - as countless times before - she managed to bring us all together.

Thorsten

Baking buns

I arrived in Kenya late Sunday night just in time for me to start the new week together with the team. They had done a fantastic job last week. Most of all they had brought together the Executive Council of the organization and with them defined the high level issues and the 'operational' vision and mission statements for the organization. A grand achievement that will provide a lot of clarity and guidance to the organization in the future and to the rest of our work here. It is important to note the word 'operational', meaning that it is separate from the 'spiritual' vision that Koinonia has a Christian community. One of the most interesting things about this project has been the question on how to bridge this gap between spirituality and day-to-day work. They don't teach you that at school!

Having established the overall objectives for the organization we prepared a workshop that should align the many initiatives with the overall vision. We made some adjustments to the framework that we had used during our first visit here......

...and asked the managers of the individual units to fill it in again. This time the objectives came from the overall organization, not from the units themselves.

A couple of them shared their filled-in framework. It became much clearer how both Social Initiatives and Income Generating Activities can pull in the same direction in support of the overall Koinonia vision.

Last night we met MBA2008 Jesper Hornberg and his friend Petter, who are in Kenya on a project of their own.

Early morning at Baraza Café where we have our breakfast every morning. Baraza is one of the Income Generating Activities under the Koinonia umbrella that serves the purpose of generating income for the social initiatives such as the children's homes.

Today Wednesday we took the next step in bringing the overall vision down to the level of the daily work. We did that by conducting a workshop on process mapping. The objective of the workshop was two-fold: To teach process mapping as a tool and to help Koinonia understand some of their own key processes better.
We needed a simple and recognizable process as an example to teach the very basics of process mapping. Inspired by my dad, who frequently surprises his family with freshly baked buns, we used the process of 'baking buns' as example. That proved excellent to get the points across.

We then split the Koinonia people in smaller teams and asked them to do a process map of a restaurant visit. Each of them were given roles such as host, waiter, cook and manager in order to spice up the discussion. The objective was to teach how to do an integrated flow chart for a process that involves multiple parties.

Next step was then to map Koinonia's own processes. Here Eva and Evelyn are working with the managers on the HR process 'Hiring-to-retiring'.

Helen from the Kivuli Centre - one of the children's homes - took the lead on mapping perhaps the most core of all processes in Koinonia, the reason for their existence, how to 'Integrate a child'.

The 'Integrate a child' process became center of an intense debate, which immediately pin-pointed some of the key issues that the organization is facing with its integration process. This is where the real power of processing mapping lies: Bring people from different parts of a process together and ask them to map their own work and you will be amazed about the understanding it creates. The issues with the process will unavoidable show up.

We were (again) amazed about the passion with which the Koinonia people speak of helping the children in Nairobi. This is much, much more than just a job for them. This is what they live for!

Monday evening I received the sad news that my grandma passed away. In the middle of these sad circumstances, I am so relieved that I made it home last week and managed to see her alive for the last time. When we left her on Saturday I said 'See you later, grandma'. I could not make myself say 'Goodbye', neither did I believe it was the last time. The funeral will be on Saturday, so when the rest of the team goes to Lausanne on Friday I will be heading back home to Denmark.

Thorsten

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons, that was the name of a very popular game when I was a child. You could get it both as a role play and a computer game. Somehow those words are coming back to life, but with a very different meaning.

The dungeons are the dungeons, nothing new about that. Generations of IMD students have shed their blood, sweat and tears down there. And it is all still there, at least it smells that way some times. :-) We are spending the whole day in study room 7 these days, trying to squeeze some of all the ambiguity out of our ICP project on Street Children in Nairobi. We have built up a frame work to help us understand how NGOs work and we have now started calling other NGOs to plot them into the framework and get reference points. That way we can much better understand how our organization, Koinonia, operates. These days we even have some additional help as Daniel Brosseau from last years class helps us fill in the framework. Daniel spent six weeks with Koinonia back in April and May, so he has a lot of the information we need. Now that we have created the framework and understand the NGO 'industry' better, it has become much easier to understand the situation in Koinonia. When first introduced to the project in May it seemed a bit overwhelming.


And what about the Dragons? Well, I was talking about our internal ones. Such as the fear of needles. Here we are yesterday getting our vaccinations for Kenya. Gerald takes it pretty easy, though.


We kept the doctor busy for more than an hour. It was no easy task to put together the vaccination 'menu' for a Malaysian, a Romanian/Israeli and a Dane that were going to Kenya. In usual Swiss style it all worked like clockwork, though, but came with a steep price tag.



It is late August and 33 degrees in Lausanne. The picture is even taken at 5 in the afternoon, so it has undoubtedly been even warmer earlier in the day.

Thorsten

Two days with Uncle Ralf

It has been two very intense days with Uncle Ralf, a.k.a Professor Ralf Boscheck. We have been working on setting up a framework for this somewhat peculiar 'industry' called 'NGOs' or more specifically 'Human Aid organizations dealing with street children'. Based on what we have learned so far we have defined the 'market', the 'competitors' and so forth. As with businesses we need to look at how the money gets in and how it is spent, but that is also the end of the similarities. For example, for a Human Aid organization it is not the 'customers', i.e. the street children, that pays for the services, but instead it is the donors who often have a different aim than the children.

On the 'operational' side we are looking at how different visions affects the choices an organization must make: 'Do you want to give as many children as possible the minimum that is required for them to move on with their lives' OR 'Do you want to create a heaven for a relatively small number of children, that then gets all the help you can provide'. Your brain will tell you that the first option is better, your heart will go for the second option if you are in Kenya where it all is happening. If there is one thing that has become clear so far, then it is that this project will be a battle against the dilemma of balancing brain and heart. The people that work in these types of organizations are there because of their good hearts, so we must be very careful not to come with a super rational mindset.

Ralf is a fountain of knowledge and a Duracell rabbit with new batteries. We worked full days, but frequently and intentionally sidetracked into other interesting discussion. He never ran out of energy. It is fascinating to hear these views and have a person of his caliber one-on-one (or one-on-five). He loves to provoke, to rattle the cage and see what comes out. Unless you are really trained and used to academic or political debates, it can be very hard to keep up, though. Nevertheless, it has been a couple of incredibly insightful days that drained me for every drop of energy I had. I have been sleeping very well the last couple of nights. And so I will tonight!

Sov godt!

Koinonia

Ups, it is the middle of the night and I just woke up on the couch. I did not intend to take that 3 hour 'nap'. The upside is that I feel more fresh now than when I came home a few hours ago.

No two days are the same at IMD, but today was more different than most! Like many other teams we met we the client for our International Consulting Project (ICP). Whereas the majority of the 18 ICP clients are large corporations our team will be working with Koinonia, a relatively small NGO that amongst others runs a number of homes for street children in Nairobi, Kenya.

In the MBA Diary on 21 November 2008 Asier Sinde [Basque] from last year's class was quoted for saying:
"Our visit to Kenya was an eye opening experience that has had a strong impact not only on our year at IMD but also on our individual lives. As a result, we have recently started an initiative to create a fund that will aim at rehabilitating deprived and abused children from the streets and sponsoring them into high school and college in Kenya. This initiative will be implemented through Koinonia, a local NGO which some of us met in Kenya and that is already operating in Nairobi."

The 2008 class decided to help Koinonia by funding a 2009 ICP project for them and today they took another step in fulfilling this promise as they came to hand over the torch to the 2009 class. We are both humbled and honored to be given this task and opportunity and we look forward to getting started. It will be our largest opportunity to date to make a difference in a lot of people's lives.

The 2008's were represented by Daniel Brosseau, Max Sorokin and Svetlana Korshunova. It was obvious from the stories they told that last year's discovery trip to Kenya had made a huge impression on the class collectively. Daniel has just returned from a six week trip to Kenya, where he has been working withKoinonia on preparing our ICP project. He has obviously collected A LOT of information where there was little information to get. This will undoubtedly prove invaluable to get us off to a running start.

The afternoon was a huge information download from Daniel, Max and Svetlana. I think this was what wore me out so badly. The last week have been full of thoughts about our final startup presentations and classes on Financial Derivatives, so it is quite a switch to suddenly start thinking about improving life in the slums of East Africa.

The birds have started singing outside. I think they are telling me to go to bed!



Hand-over from the 2008 class to the 2009 class!
From left: Stefano Giussani [Italian], Max Sorokin [Russian - 2008 class], Daniel Brosseau [Canada - 2008 class], Svetlana Korshunova [Russia - 2008 class], Thorsten Boeck [Denmark], Gerald Lo [Malaysia], Ruslana Zbagerska [Canada/Ukraine], Eva Hubsman [Israel/Romania].