Henry Sims | Personal Journey & Development (NO AI)

After using the VARK learning style model, Visual, Aural, Read and Write, and Kinesthetic, during my university dissertation, I recently revisited it to better understand my own learning styles rather than focusing solely on the project clients at the time. I came to the conclusion that I am a bit of a jack of all trades, however my strongest learning style by far is Visual. I benefit greatly from seeing large, colourful, meaningful charts, dashboards and diagrams that present high level information in a way that is clear and not overly complex. After hearing about Claude, specifically Sonnet 4.6 on the free standard version, and its ability to break down information and structure data into graphs and diagrams, I knew I had to give it a go! Today I wanted to share an example use case outside of the workplace. I have found that when we talk about AI in more personal contexts, it often sparks ideas for how those tools could be applied in the workplace as well. So since January 2026, afte...

At my company we have seen a rise in AI initiatives being driven across different business units. Recently the IT teams were asked to come up with internal business use case ideas. Personally, I think this should be opened up to the whole organisation so that we can build a broader pool of ideas about how we actually plan to use AI to improve productivity, one of the most important and measurable metrics for the business. I began thinking about what I could propose. Most of my work focuses on the integration side of AI, particularly how it can be embedded into the apps and tools we use every day. My aim is always to get as much value and functionality from AI as possible to support users in their day-to-day work. I have recently been brought into a new project where our IT applications team, along with teams from other regions, has aligned on an initiative to achieve the following: • Improve transparency of the company’s application landscape • Ensure mandatory fields are correctly pop...

At my company, we've seen a noticeable rise in AI‑generated training material, with teams across the organisation exploring new ways to create learning content that is faster to produce, more consistent in quality, and far more engaging for colleagues. While we don’t yet have an officially approved internal platform for generating AI‑based training videos, early trials and growing interest across multiple departments clearly demonstrate the significant potential this technology holds for transforming how we deliver training. One of the key platforms explored so far is Synthesia, which has been trialled within parts of the wider organisation. Synthesia is a powerful tool that enables our employees to create AI‑generated training, update, and communication videos with ease. Employees can convert scripts or presentations into polished, professional‑looking videos using AI avatars available in more than 120 languages, making it an attractive solution for creating scalable, repeatable c...

An IT demand recently arisen to support in building and maintaining an interactive report that outlines quarterly cyber security vulnerability alerts so customers can easily break down and analyse each vulnerability, their key metrics and CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) ID's. Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence tool that transforms raw data into interactive dashboards, reports and visual insights for decision-making. Due to my graduate placements in Digitalisation, Strategy and Innovation units, I've been heavily exposed and certified to Power BI for many use cases. Due to my heavy exposure, I was very keen to use Power BI for this demand.  I was able to quickly import raw excel data stored in a Microsoft OneDrive repository to a Power BI report, and set up a daily file refresh, meaning amendments to the source file were updated in the report daily at 7:00am.  See figure 1, a snapshot (with confidential information covered) of one of the report pages. The ...

Last Friday marked the end of my first year (of two) on the Siemens Mobility Graduate Programme! Over the past 12 months, I've had the opportunity to rotate around the business, getting a flavour for what is out there in the business and now I have returned to my substantive IT role.  It's been a couple of weeks now in my fresh role within the Special Networks team. There's been a new 'demand', if you'll pardon the joke, for a stop-gap demand management system, while teams await a proper solution from the wider business.  A selection of requirements were derived (in MoSCoW format), including: Demands must be separated by each IT business unit. Demands must have a clear, colour-coded process, from being a 'new demand' through to a 'completed demand'.  The demand management system  must  be easy to navigate and use. Demands must   have an accurate start and due date.  Each demand  must   be assigned to a user/s. Demands should have an assign...

Hello and welcome to my blog! I've always wanted to start a blog but never took the time to figure out how to create one. After some searching, I discovered Blogger.com, which has been fantastic so far. It's easy to use and automatically updates my most recent posts on the homepage. I recently spoke with my professional mentor, who also has a blog. He documents the projects he's involved with, the charity events he attends, the charterships he's part of, and much more. It appears to be an excellent resource for tracking personal development, which motivated me to start my own.