David Gilbert

I work for Canfor with a focus on the US region. Canfor manages over 15 mills and collects data from machine centers inside the sawmills to generate reports. On-site employees use these reports to make informed decisions when cutting lumber. We do a lot of impactful digital transformation work. My digital transformation journey has just started. I wasn’t even aware that what we did fell into that category. We bring connectivity and collect data to provide the mills with easy-to-read reports, views, dashboards, and lumber tags.

I run a lot of projects that branch out into other teams. I found I was having problems defining roles and holding people accountable for their deliverables. There wasn’t a lot of structure around these projects that I was doing. I was looking to get more skilled in that area and make my projects more structured. Most of my work was based on learning from mentors or trial and error. I decided to enter the Digital Transformation Management program after some encouragement from my manager, who was familiar with it.

The Digital Transformation Management program is not like other virtual programs that I’ve taken. In those, you just read the material and then take a test. This program was the complete opposite – and it worked really well with my schedule. The projects were very interesting and informative. The lectures were about 30 to 60 minutes. To me, this is the perfect amount of time to learn a few important ideas without the lecture dragging on and losing focus.

This program brings together different people from various areas and parts of the world. These individuals are from different types of businesses. It was interesting to learn that although my classmates came from different industries, our work wasn’t that different. You really start to see that everyone is experiencing the same issues – like pestering people about deadlines.

Learning about different project management tools was a revelation to me. Previously, I thought I could manage my projects with only a Word document and an Excel spreadsheet. That approach is not going to work. You create a lot of problems for yourself by not using the right tools. That really opened my eyes as to how I should prepare for an impactful digital transformation project meeting to set the tone for the rest of the project.

Learning about project management tools in the DTM program, such as the RACI chart, is important for your projects. I applied that to one of the projects I was working on while in the program. It made it clear to the team who was responsible for specific project activities. I am going to use this in every one of my projects moving forward.

Another highlight was my classmates, from whom I learned a lot. Ekanem Mboto, in particular, brought many amazing things to our group. She’s a systems analyst as well, and she was very well-versed in many of the tools we were learning about. She was well-structured and put together. I learned a lot from her about being prepared, as well as different tool sets and things that I can add to my tool belt. It’s always great to meet someone who’s passionate about their job, and she definitely is.

Go into the Digital Transformation Management program as open-minded as possible. I think many people get tunnel vision when it comes to projects – I know I definitely did and still do. When you get too focused on specific areas, you lose the big picture. Also, learning about all the tools may seem overwhelming at first. However, if you take your time to learn them and apply them to your impactful digital transformation projects it will make a world of difference.