1. Your job scope?
--- My Job role is P4 client architect. The responsibility of this role is listed as below:
1). Support sales team to win new deals on P4 by clarifying clients' requirements, designing competitive solutions for clients, deliverying PoC for clients if required, proving IBM's private cloud building capability through technical workshops or presentations.
2). Deploy P4 to clients who have signed contracts with IBM.
3). Feedback to development team on prioritized marketing needs on private cloud. Provide valuable feedback to P4 development team on the key features that missed in P4 offering but which is very popular in the market and help development team review the revised
design.
--- 我目前担任的是P4云平台客户架构师，我的责任包括:
1)，辅助销售团队明确客户需求，基于P4云平台和IBM相关产品为客户设计有竞争力的整体云解决方案； 实施POC，为客户讲解IBM私有云方案以及负责相关技术研讨。
2)，为签约客户设计并部署P4云平台。
3)，基于市场动态和客户需求的优先级，为P4开发团队提供产品开发建议，包括新功能点和已有功能需要增强的地方，并协助开发同事审查功能设计方案。
2. What's project you're leading/supporting? Were there any business challenges for you to finish it? And how do you make it?
--- Currently I am working on the Foton cloud deployment project as leading architect. I worked as leading technical architect from the project engagement phase, solution design phase through the current deploying phase.
The major challenges for this project are:
1).At the early stage, there were many strong competitors like H3C, Huawei, HPE, the private cloud requested by Foton would be used for their internet of vehicle. So the business impact was critical for the winning of this contract. The client's technical discussions
with all the competitors had been kept for around 1 year but still hadn't not decided before I joined the team with our P4 offering.
2).Foton has multiple organizations who wish to use the cloud platform, but each organization has different requirements for the cloud and some of their requirements are conflict. The worst situation is that they do not have a high level executive to manage
this conflict from the client side.
3). The schedule of the design and deployment for this client was extremely tight. They asked us to complete all the works including requirement clarification, hardware bidding, purchasing, cloud platform design, deployment and tests in 3 months. I never saw
such tight schedule. But the client needs the system for their production use and can not miss the schedule.
During the engagement phase, I helped IBM team influence Foton clients to choose IBM solution. We carefully investigated client's requirements, their deployment situation, and compared our solution with the competitors' and addressed our strengths to focus
on clients' key pain points by integrating P4 together with multiple IBM products. We tested clients' feedback, recorded all their concerns and addressed them pro-actively by providing specific workshops or presentations.
To resolve the conflict requirements from client's different teams, we worked closely with them, listen to their requirements, provide recommendation from technical profession perspective and try my best to avoid any further conflicts. And make them to be awared
that I am helping them achieve the common objectives of the project but not arguing with them.
Regarding the tight schedule, the entire IBM team had been working very hard to make this happen. The management team also helped find experts and the development and testing team resolved tough technical problems in very short time and provided different documents
within a limited amount of time. To achieve this same goal, it was only a team work that can make it happen. Even it is still in the middle of the deployment work for this client, but everything goes well so far and I have confidence on this team to make
another impossible happen.
In this case, IBM solution's "easy to use" by providing a self service portal, strong process customization capability, competitive bare-metal management capability, software pattern provisioning capability and comprehensive IT monitoring capabilities made
the customer finally made their choice. And IBMer's profession on design and deployment also impressed our clients. The client now can be able to meet their production schedule by deploying their private cloud and IBM wined the contract of this key client
as well as the trust from the client.
--- 目前我在福田汽车私有云项目里担任首席架构师，我是从这个项目售前阶段就参与进来的，经历了项目签约，整体设计，硬件采购，一直到目前的实施阶段。
这个过程中我们项目组遇到了很多挑战，主要有：
1)，在项目售前阶段，我们遇到了不少强大的竞争对手，包括华为，H3C，惠普等。由于福田汽车云平台是用来支撑其核心的车联网系统的关键基础平台，所以公司上下都非常重视, 以至于在IBM P4云平台和福田客户讨论之前，客户和相关竞争对手的技术讨论持续了近1年的时间，客户还无法决定究竟采用哪家的产品和方案。
2)，福田汽车有多个部门都会使用这个云平台，每个部门都有自己比较独特的需求，而且其中有些需求是相互冲突的，更糟的是有些时候客户没有一个统一的高层去化解这些冲突的需求，需要我们来帮助他们梳理。
3)，由于客户需要用到云平台的系统上线时间已经确定，所以云平台从设计到实施时间非常紧张只有3个月，需要做完从需求分析，硬件(服务器，存储，网络)选型、招标、采购，云平台设计、部署和测试。我之前从来没有遇到过时间这么紧张的项目，但是因为客户车联网和全球CRM系统的上线时间不能推迟，所以我们整个IBM团队的责任和压力是非常大的。
在售前阶段，我帮助IBM团队一起仔细分析客户需求，对比我们和竞争对手的不同产品，从客户的真实痛点出发，结合P4云平台和IBM的不同产品，为客户做方案讲解和技术讨论，针对客户的反馈不断修改我们的方案使其更符合客户的需求。
针对客户部门之间有冲突的需求，我们积极的和客户不同的部门进行沟通，认真聆听他们的想法，从专业的技术角度为他们提供建议，尽最大的力量化解不一致的需求。让客户感受到我们是在帮助他们达成一致的目标，从而使项目顺利进行。
关于项目时间周期很紧这个难点，整个IBM团队为了达到客户的期望，都非常努力的工作。管理团队及时帮助我们协调相关专家支持，开发测试团队每次都在很短的时间解决我们遇到棘手的技术问题并且按时提供客户需要的各种文档。整个项目进行过程中，IBM团队充分展示了非凡的团队协作能力，从而使项目到目前为止十分顺利，我也非常有信心即使未来还会遇到什么问题，我们团队都有能力解决它。
最终，IBM云平台解决方案所提供的易于使用的门户，强大的流程定义能力，有竞争力的物理机管理功能，还有软件部署和全面的IT监控运维能力，促使客户选择了IBM。而后我们为其提供专业的设计和实施也给客户留下了深刻的印象，客户也非常信赖我们有能力帮助他们实现其应用按时部署到云平台这个艰巨的任务。
3. What kind of believe drive you or your team to make it success? What you've learned from this project?
--- First of all, I believe our solution is very valuable for our clients: it saves their cost, makes better use of their resources and makes their daily work much easier.
Secondly, I also believe whenever I encounter a challenge from the client, I can always rely on my management team and the development team to support me on my back.
Thirdly, I have confidence in IBM that I can always get an expert's support on any technical challenge I encountered. And I can learn from them to continuously improve and develop my skills.
--- For what I have learned:
Although the project is still moving forward, I have learned a lot, e.g. how to continuously improve our product to make it attractive to our customer, how to support our sales team to manage clients' endless requirements, how to collaborate multiple teams
including sales team, deliver team, clients, business partners to achieve the goal of completing the projects and bringing value to the clients.
--- 首先，我坚信我们的云解决方案是能够给客户带来真正价值的，是可以帮助客户减少开销，更好的利用他们的物理资源，并且能够使客户每天工作得更轻松。
其次，我深信我在客户这里不论遇到什么挑战和问题，我都可以依赖我的经理、还有开发测试团队的队友，他们会尽最大可能地给我提供帮助。
第三，我对IBM的技术实力非常有信心，不论遇到什么的问题，我都可以从相关的技术专家那里得到帮助，并且不断提高我自身的能力。
--- 虽然项目目前还在紧张的实施过程中，我已经从中收获了很多东西，比如如何结合客户的需求不断的提升我们自己的产品从而使其对客户更具吸引力；如何帮助销售团队去控制客户无限的需求；如何在客户，销售，业务伙伴和实施团队之间协调使大家达成一致的目标，充分合作。