I won't be a Lumber Jack - my Fight against Canadian Windmills.

Being a management consultant specialising in process efficiency sometimes makes life more difficult. Let me tell you what happened with my Canadian eTA application, a new visa waiver programme for Canada, similar to the American ESTA programme. 

I booked a flight to Calgary, wanted to spend a week and a bit in the Rocky Mountainsm, hiking and stuff; and after having paid the air fare I went on the Air Canada website to find out about eTA. I went on the eTA website and applied. One question was: Do you take regular medication? And I instinctively knew there was a problem. I had some form of skin cancer last year and need to take a pill a day. I stood in front of a dilemma - should I lie and say No I might face the risk of getting caught at the border. Being stamped a liar I'd never be allowed back into Canada. Should I not lie, I knew I'd have to go through a questionnaire or so and it would not be as easy to obtain an eTA as it would have been if I had lied. 

I didn't lie, told the truth, and I got the following message: 

Your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) has been received. A review of your file is underway. You will be advised within 72 hours of next steps regarding your application.

You can check the status of your application by using the Check eTA status tool. To do this, you will need the application number noted above and details from the passport you used to apply for your eTA.

72 hours it says. Well..... 168 hours later, this is 7 days, I received another e-mail from them: 

Status: Pending – Client action required

eTA number: V30786838x

Passport number: xxx

A review of your Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) application is underway. In order for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to continue processing your application, we need some documents from you.

Do not submit your documents by email. To submit your documents, you will need to create or log into your secure MyCIC account at www.cic.gc.ca/mycic. CIC will request documents from you through this account.

Once you have created or logged into your MyCIC account, you will need to link your eTA application to your account by clicking on the “Link eTA application to this account” button.

For future visits to your MyCIC account, go to www.cic.gc.ca/mycic. Select the “Continue to GCKey” button and enter your GCKey user ID and password.

During the review of your file, you are not considered to hold a valid eTA. As such, you should not plan or undertake any travel to Canada until you are advised otherwise.

Right, I have to open that link and sign up and submit some papers. I guessed it was the travel insurance or a certificate of what kind of illness I had. I still had that paper that I completed my radiotherapy sessions and was about to scan it. Whatever. I clicked on the link and an error message occurred. I tried with my Mac and at work with a normal windows computer. I always got this message: 

Server Error

403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.

You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

I was annoyed. I clicked myself through some website, Canada.ca, and found a link where one can report any system issues. I submitted my problem and received the following: 

Thank you for contacting Canada.ca.

This email has been automatically generated to let you know that we have received your message.

The Government of Canada privacy policies do not allow us to forward email messages on your behalf to any other Government of Canada organizations, programs, services or representatives.

We do not respond to correspondence that contains offensive language.

I waited for a day or so and received the following message: 

Canada.ca does not maintain the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website.

Information on how to report technical difficulties encountered with the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website or on how to obtain related assistance is accessible from the "Help Centre" section of the Department’s website at the following URL:

What do I do if I run into technical problems with my online application to CIC?
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=799&t=23

Good Lord! I clicked on the link and opened up a help section and reported my problems. I got the following message back: 

*** Please note that this is an automated message. ***

Thank you for contacting Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).

You may expect an answer if:

*   you have submitted an application;

*   your application has exceeded normal processing times<http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/index.asp>;

*   you wish to report important changes or an emergency situation;

*   you wish to report a technical issue with Citizenship and Immigration online services.

Please note that we will not respond if you have not provided all the mandatory fields in submitting your question.

For general questions on the Citizenship or Immigration programs,  visit the online Help Centre<http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/index-featured-int.asp> on our website<http://www.cic.gc.ca/>.

Submitting the same request multiple times will not expedite the processing of your enquiry.

The turnaround time for a response is of 10 business days for online technical difficulties and 30 business days for case specific inquiries.

Please note that Citizenship and Immigration Canada can only communicate with you in one of our two official languages: English or French.

Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

10 days. I have to wait 10 days now!!!! 10 days????? Okay, I waited for 10 days. In fact, I waited for 15 days and am still waiting for resolving my IT issue I had with the site. 

Last weekend I called a phone number which I found on their website. I got something like the following automated message:

"Invalid number, no phone calls answered."

I was about to cry! Please God, I don't want to steal from the Canadian health care system, I am happy with the NHS. I only want to travel to see Calgary and the Rocky Mountains, and that only for a week. What on earth is going wrong there??? 

After 3 more days I received the following message: 

Status: Closed

Application number: V30786838x

Passport number: 

Following an assessment of your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA), it has been determined that you do not meet the requirements for an eTA. Please see the attached document for the reasons leading to this decision.

 Your application is now closed.

You are not considered to hold a valid eTA. As such, you should not plan or undertake any travel to Canada. Should you decide to travel to Canada, you may experience delays at boarding or on arrival, and you may not be allowed to board your flight or enter Canada.

I do not meet the requirements? I haven't had a single chance of doing anything but wait, wait for more than 4 weeks now. What's wrong with you guys in Canada? Can't you implement an online visa procedure and system and get your interdepartmental communication right?

Basically, that's it, right? My mistake was that I did not lie, telling the Canadian authorities about the pills I am taking daily. This triggered the whole issue, I am sure. 

As management consultant I can conclude the following: 

- No sufficient project management planning for introducing the eTA system.-

- No IT knowledge to send out links that actually work.

- No contact possibility

   -  e-mails can't be sent, other than via the website that didn't work.

   -  the call centre did not answer any messages.

- No communication link between their IT department and operations department. Those operations people should have seen that there was an open IT ticket.

- No time keeping. In both cases they exceeded the time promised to get back to me. 

And what are the consequences? 

- No holidays for me in Canada.

- Loss of money, as I will have to return the ticket. Also, the eTA had to be paid.

- If I should I ever want to enter Canada again, I would always have to answer the following question: Have you ever been denied entry into Canada? I'll always be brandmarked. I will always have to explain to some immigration officer about this. And nothing is my fault. 

CANADA, PLEASE SORT YOUR PROCESSES OUT!!! 

One of my problems is, as management consultant I understand processes and know exactly when processes go wrong, like in this instance. The frustrating thing is, that there is nothing I can do. I could open a new eTA case, but I'd get the same over and over again - being denied, being sent a non-working link, being made to wait and wait and wait and nobody to talk to. 

I am hoping anyone from the Canadian Immigration Authorities will read my blog and do something about this situation. 

---------------------------

I posted this blog entry last Thursday, 25 January. I thought the case was over. No, it goes on. 

Also on the 25th I wrote this Twitter entry:

Thanks Canada. Feedback about ill-working processes en route to implementing eTA.  http://roland-brunner.blogspot.de/2016/02/i-wont-be-lumber-jack-my-fight-agains.html … 

@CitImmCanada

This morning, the 27th I have received the following message: 

Dear Roland,

Thank you for contacting Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

In order to access your MyCIC account we suggest you to try this link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/e-services/mycic.asp

If you are still experiencing technical difficulties fill out this email form choose Electronic Travel Authorization - General and Technical Enquiries located in the drop down menu under the heading Enquiry,and include:  

Sincerely,

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
www.cic.gc.ca

I do still have my ticket, but I am somehow on the verge of losing interest in flying to Canada and am pondering whether I should simply leave it. My enthusiasm for hiking through the Rockies for a few days is dwindling.

Guys in Canada, you should really sort your inefficiencies and processes out, please!

I'll send another message to them to their twitter account and will also write to this e-mail address. If that doesn't work, I'll give up. 

----------------------

Today is the 9th of March and I have given up. I returned the airline ticket. I tried to get another eTA but when I ready "Were you ever refused entry into Canada?" I decided this is too much to bear. Somehow, I completely lost interest. It's just such a shame that they can't implement a visa IT system and get their processes right. 

----------------------

The story goes on: On the 12th of March I have received the following after I, in fact, replied to that one e-mail from the 27th. In that e-mail I copied in this blog link asking them to read through as I could not possibly write the whole shebong. I also wrote a bit about what happened. Of course, nobody ever read that blog entry (as I can see in Google Analytics). As a result I have received this automated e-mail, yes, yet another automated e-mail. All in all, I must conclude that I had to deal with such an amazing degree of incompetence that it's hard to believe if I hadn't collected all those e-mails as evidence. 

Status: Closed

Application number: V3078683xx     

Passport number:           

Thank you for contacting Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA).

The status of your application is: Refused.

In accordance with Section 11(1.01) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), an electronic Travel Authorization may be issued to a foreign national if he or she is not inadmissible to Canada and meets the requirements of the Act.

Subsection 16(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states that a person who makes an application must answer truthfully all questions put to them for the purpose of the examination and must produce all relevant evidence and documents that the officer reasonably requires.

You have not submitted proof of funds, proof residence and itinerary details as requested on 2016/02/09 to be provided by 2016/02/19.

Please note however, that clients who do not submit required documents within the deadline provided, or clients who do not submit the documents that were specifically requested may see their applications being refused. As such, you may want to submit another eTA application, ensuring that all required documents are submitted within the timeline granted and that issues raised earlier are properly addressed.

You are not considered to hold a valid eTA. As such, you should not plan or undertake any travel to Canada. Should you decide to travel to Canada, you may experience delays at boarding or on arrival, and you may not be allowed to board your flight or enter Canada.

Sincerely,

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

I am wondering if anyone from Canada will ever read it. It's such a great case study of what can go wrong. 

If I should ever get a reply from them, I'll copy it below here. 

Just to link my travel blog to here, an entry from my last trip to Canada in August 2010. I flew to Halifax and took a tour for a few days, PEI, etc. 

http://rollsgoesworld.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/halifax-nova-scotia-canada.html 

Freelance vs Employment

It is "in between project time" again and I am looking for something new. To get me started, I think I should use my blog again, as type of self-coaching tool, where I would sit and write about my steps in the process to look for a new job or project. 

One of the problems I have faced so far is: What on earth do I actually want? Headhunters call and tell me about some job they have and then ask whether I like it. I would say "yes" or "no" but in the end, I feel I am missing a list of things I should look out for more categorically rather than imagining I could do something or not. 

The first step today is to think about freelancing vs employment. What do I want? 


THOUGHTS ON FREELANCING:

I have been freelancing for the last few years and for me it works pretty well. I would be hired for a project and these assignments can last from a few weeks to a few years. I like freelancing, as it gives me lots of flexibility which I appreciate so highly. It also allows me to do my voluntary job whenever I want to do it and not necessarily on a weekend (I am not allowed to write about my voluntary job but I mentioned it on my blog somewhere. Let's say it involves the terms "law and order"). 

Recently, I started to wonder whether I should go back to employment, as there are also negative sides to freelancing: It is not so much those few weeks or months in between projects, it is also that one reaches a glass ceiling and the jobs out there for freelancers can all be a bit "basic" at times. Lucky me, mine were good so far, but I know what's out there. I am ready for more in my life and feel I need to push my career a bit more. Nonetheless, I would still go ahead with freelancing and projects as I find it satisfying and rewarding to help my clients to be successful. 

Typically, these are the areas where I would see myself working in:

- Management Consultant/Project Manager/Programme Manager/Project Director/PMO for a consultancy company that specialises in operational excellence, efficiency and performance improvements, coaching, change management, manufacturing and supply chain.
- The same as above, but contracting directly to the end-client rather than through a consultancy company.

Freelance heaven would be, if I had a list of all sorts of clients who I could call or who would call regularly for shorter assignments and keep me busy. 


THOUGHTS ON EMPLOYMENT:

Employment is a different beast. Even though flexibility seems gone, this does not mean that I would enter a life of boredom and being restricted to the daily treadmill. Employment is still an essential way to climb up the career ladder and put more long-term meaning into one's work life, rather than hunting from project to project. 

What would I like to consider where I could use my skills the best? That would be of course any position where one is needed who can detect causes of all sorts of problems arising in companies and deal with them effectively. I can imagine this to be a board or "reporting to board" position, possibly in Operations. 

It would be an industry job, somewhere manufacturing or supply chain. Or in the internal consulting branch of a major international player that is looking to strengthen their continuous improvement efforts. 

I am a bit hesitant to work for another consultancy company. Somehow I have done that during the first few years in my life and it feels I have done it enough. I would not like to rule it out though, as I could possibly like a Regional Operations Director role or anything similar to that. 

Last week I met a headhunter who is looking for 2 positions: The one is for a company that looks to get outsource contracts from the national security industry and the other one is one of the major international property services companies. For the first I am interesting because of my voluntary job AND my knowledge of performance improvement, for the latter only my consulting knowledge would be of advantage as I would come in to ask all the right and difficult questions which would then enable them to think "improvement and change". 

What I like about these 2, those are completely new areas for me. I never worked in either, the security nor building industry. What a challenge to tackle!


EXPERIENCE AS FREELANCER:

If my conclusion is that in the end I should possibly consider another full-time position, would that mean I have to automatically say freelancing was not worth doing? Absolutely not! One learns so many essential skills as freelancer; the best thing for me is that I know I can rely on myself and can do it all alone. I learned to ask for business and find opportunities, as in the old days I always expected work would be there for me one way or another. I am responsible for whatever I am doing and there is no organisation in which I could hide and wait till the storm is over. These are all extremely good skills and I am very proud of having them.  

In the end, freelance work or employment, it does not really matter. Once I commit to an assignment or job I do it full-heartedly. So yes, let's get this job hunt going and see what I will come up with.

My Director

The other day I got a phone call from a colleague of mine from Proudfoot, it was Thomas, and he was my director on the Otto Bock project. We worked together on various other projects, too. It was the first time we chatted since 2005 I guess, which was really nice. There was no specific reason for the call, just a chat and touch base again. Thomas read this blog and whilst doing so, he recognised that I disgracefully left him completely out in the Otto Bock story! Shame on me!

Let me do that now and pay hommage to a team member (and no, he is not dead yet) who had an extremely vital role in the project. I especially need to thank him for all the client handling advice he gave me. As a young project manager, who is still green behind his ears, client handling (and I mean the top clients) is extremely vital.

In the worst of times when the savings had to be cashed in and defined he spent an extremely huge amount of time on the project and took a leading role. And I am very happy he did!

Anyway, I thought I still had to mention that.

Otto Bock - Layout

It was the biggest project Proudfoot at that time. We sold €9m of financial savings, the project cost €3m, which, I think, equalled up to about 200-something manweeks. It was a HUGE project. In our peak period we were up to 12 consultants and 15 task forces.

I'll talk more about each workstream in the following entries.

ON the photo one can see our "birdroom", the project room.

missing details

So far, I have not really talked about project contents and disclosed details of findings in those business reviews. It is simply too long ago that I can remember any of them.

But this is also indicative that as someone in his early years as consultant does not actually "quite get it". First of all, consultants are focused on their own area and hardly ever on the project/analysis as a whole, second, one does not have an understanding of the other areas anyway and does not listen when it is being reported, and third, many project managers and analysts simply don't give any feedback or information.

I think people only go as far as their responsibility reaches. And since this is normally a lot one hardly looks over one's plate anymore.

But hey, a few more projects to come and I will have got promoted to Project Manager... and then I do know the details indeed...

The Dullest ever Press Release Written (by myself)

“DIY Consulting”, a clever way to gain strength from within when cash is scarce.

In times of no money in the market companies cannot afford to spend huge amounts of cash for management consultancies, but especially now they would need their services the most. Using freelancing ex-consultants who specialised in coaching and mentoring would be an extremely interesting way of still cashing in savings, implementing change initiatives, however avoiding the high weekly invoice.

What is good about consultancies, they come in, analyse the situation, come up with savings and how to cash those benefits in with a potential project, the do the work, create momentum, and they leave again. By then, the company will have hopefully saved what was being agreed, but to an expensive price.

A little calculation for a small project: Day rates of a single consultant are around GBP 2,000, a small to average sized project team would consist of 3 people, and project length would be about 5 months (20 weeks). This equals to GBP 600,000. Applying a Return-on-Investment of 3:1 the savings potential is about GBP 1,800,000 on an annual basis.

Cashing in the savings is nice, but the question most CEOs have to answer when employing consultants is, whether the fee is justified; their invoice is often weekly but their savings are mostly delayed, with that risk on the client’s side. Besides, consultancies may oversell, and consultancy-internal inefficiencies are also built into that daily rate for which no client wants to pay.

Apart from the actual knowledge they bring into the organisation whilst helping them attaining the results, their main advantage is that certain pressure they create and the need for urgency (mainly because they are expensive and people get scared dealing with them).

In hard times like a looming recession the pressure is on anyway; consultancies should find it hard to sell this most important tactical tool.

Time for another calculation exercise: The company is hiring a flexible freelance consultant, who has exactly the same knowledge, on an hourly/daily basis. This saves them from having a full team of consultants in house. The work is done by key management and an internal task force team. The pressure is on, the freelancer is milked for his knowledge, gives training, coaches key personnel, shares his external view, hence acts as sounding board and helps enabling the company to cash in the savings themselves.

Say, GBP 1,000 daily rate, 3 days per week, 5 months project, equals GBP 60,000, probably even less as towards the end 3 days a week is rather much. Does this mean it is the end of management consultancies? Of course not.

Huge change programmes still need to be managed by them. But one thing is for sure, times have changed and the simple approach “Oh, I have a problem, let’s call a consultancy” is no longer applicable. Companies need to rethink how to renew themselves from within with as little cash expenditure as possible. Buying in knowledge from coaches and mentors might be of great help.