I thought I would focus this blog around what I've done over the last week:
*Operations handover – spent a long session discussing how the system works, handover plans, warranty periods and support models. I work in an area that delivers new software and the operations guys then keep it running. It's an important part of the project that I manage the relationship with operations and ensure they are happy with what we are delivering.
* Disaster Recovery testing – co-ordinated the testing of our 'DR' solution to ensure that if something went wrong with our primary server we have a 'back-up' for our business users that can be brought online immediately
* Started work on the project implementation plan – sounds dull but its actually quite interesting to plan out how we put a key system live without affecting anything else in the bank - co-ordinated across multiple sites across the UK!
* Went to Alton Towers with my department as part of an away day - and went on all the scary rides!
Probably doesn't sound a lot but I am trying to pick out the key themes in just one week. On top of the preparation for these tasks and the number of other activities that can be carried forward or up coming it can add up to a busy week.
This blog is now archived. View blogs for the HBOS Graduate Schemes 2009
Friday 26 October 2007
Thursday 4 October 2007
About the scheme
In this blog I thought I would go into a bit more detail around the graduate scheme and how it operates.
Generally, as a graduate you work a series of placements across the business, generally lasting 4 to 6 months. As a graduate you have the opportunity to spend 20% of your time on activities outside of your day-2-day placement (i.e. 1 day a week).
This provides chances to be involved in some of the wider initiatives across the department, go on training courses or take part in a volunteer activities. It also lets you sometimes work with other graduates as small teams to deliver something important to the business.
Some of the recent activities I have been involved in outside my general day job:
* In May our graduate group went and spent a day painting a mural and improving a garden area at a local school, I turned out to be a half-decent artist!
* At the start of the year I was involved a consultancy piece for a team based in Wolverhampton that act as a development centre. I went down with 4 other grads and looked at ways they could improve aspects of their operation based on the knowledge we had gained through our experience and also through talking through with our networks of contacts. We then went back and did a feedback exercise and facilitated questions and answers
* Currently, I am working on a department wide initiative to simplify where line managers need to go if they have an issue to solve, problem to report or question to answer.
* And I'm also doing this blog!
All the above is accommodate into our "20% time", the other remaining time is focused on our placement role – see my other entries for a flavour of what I get up to …
There's a lot to do but variety and wider exposure to these challenges keep things interesting.
In terms of the graduates everybody is easy to get along with, helpful and we socialise fairly often. As a community we meet monthly to discuss what we are working on and what we might like to do coming up. As part of the scheme you also get opportunities to meet other grads from different parts of the business and understand what they do.
I can't think of a better way of getting to know a company and its people than being on a well run grad programme!
Generally, as a graduate you work a series of placements across the business, generally lasting 4 to 6 months. As a graduate you have the opportunity to spend 20% of your time on activities outside of your day-2-day placement (i.e. 1 day a week).
This provides chances to be involved in some of the wider initiatives across the department, go on training courses or take part in a volunteer activities. It also lets you sometimes work with other graduates as small teams to deliver something important to the business.
Some of the recent activities I have been involved in outside my general day job:
* In May our graduate group went and spent a day painting a mural and improving a garden area at a local school, I turned out to be a half-decent artist!
* At the start of the year I was involved a consultancy piece for a team based in Wolverhampton that act as a development centre. I went down with 4 other grads and looked at ways they could improve aspects of their operation based on the knowledge we had gained through our experience and also through talking through with our networks of contacts. We then went back and did a feedback exercise and facilitated questions and answers
* Currently, I am working on a department wide initiative to simplify where line managers need to go if they have an issue to solve, problem to report or question to answer.
* And I'm also doing this blog!
All the above is accommodate into our "20% time", the other remaining time is focused on our placement role – see my other entries for a flavour of what I get up to …
There's a lot to do but variety and wider exposure to these challenges keep things interesting.
In terms of the graduates everybody is easy to get along with, helpful and we socialise fairly often. As a community we meet monthly to discuss what we are working on and what we might like to do coming up. As part of the scheme you also get opportunities to meet other grads from different parts of the business and understand what they do.
I can't think of a better way of getting to know a company and its people than being on a well run grad programme!
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