Kasey Brown - Senior MIS Major

Cigna TECDP Internship

About the Internship

My internship took place for 12 weeks over summer 2017. I worked in Cigna’s Philadelphia office.

The intern program was part of Cigna’s Technology Early Career Development Program – or TECDP. The TECDP program is a 3 year rotational program where young full time hires can experience different parts of the IT field at Cigna. During orientation, Cigna speakers emphasized how important they believe it is to invest in the TECDP program – since it is the future of the program. And Cigna certainly invests in the TECDPs – including the interns! Over the course of the summer, we had the opportunities for speaker series, networking, philanthropy events, and much more.

Why Cigna?

I knew that I wanted to take part in an internship experience so that I could learn more about the MIS field and gain more insight about where I’d like to focus my career. Plus – I needed the professional achievement points!

Cigna first caught my eye when I met TECDP representatives at the MIS Department’s IT career fair in Fall 2016. The TECDPs were passionate and genuinely excited about their jobs – and I started to become very curious about what could be so great about Cigna! They spoke about a company with a great culture, a fruitful work environment, and a reputation for providing unparalleled opportunities. I knew after talking to them that I wanted that internship, and I spent the next few months working very hard to secure my spot!

My Role Work

I was hired as a Project Management Intern in Group IT. Group IT is an umbrella term to refer to all the IT operations that relate to Cigna’s disability and life insurance. Specifically, my team works on the platform used to submit and track short term disability claims.

Something very important not only to Group IT but all of Cigna IT is agile. Specifically, I was mostly exposed to the scrum methodology. It was interesting to see what role a project manager plays in the scrum environment – and I certainly still have a lot more to learn!

What did I do? Well, I spent the first few weeks very lost – so many acronyms, so little time! I tried to sit in on as many meetings as I could to get the hang of things, and I found that my role was more of a BA than a PM. I had three main projects:

Pregnancy Process Diagram

This project involved mapping the user’s interactions and customer’s experience using the platform for submitting a pregnancy claim. It involved online research, interviewing stakeholders, and producing a flow diagram with the process map. I presented the chart to my manager and her manager. They will use this diagram to plan ways to make the process more user friendly for 2019 scope items.

Change Request Backlog Clean-Up

For this project, I worked with our team’s SharePoint to organize our “to-do list” (which is the term I used to help myself understand what a backlog is!). I went through the backlog and picked items that can be closed and reached out the owners of those items to double check that the item can be closed. This organization project will continue after I left at the end of the summer.

SDLC Process Documentation

I interviewed members of Group to gather information about the current process for adding a user story to the backlog to make sure everything is being properly tracked and documented.

The Intern Project

Another part of my summer was working on the Summer Innovation Challenge. This involved working with a team of 9 other TECDP interns from across the country to solve a technology-related problem. At the end of the summer, we presented our solution to senior leaders in Connecticut.

Our team, known as Team Stream, was tasked with finding a way to improve the doctor’s office check-in process for customers and providers. Using my Digital Marketing knowledge, I served as our team’s digital media specialist. This involved creating wireframes for our solution as well as a video for our presentation. A screen shot of one such wireframe is below.

Key Takeaways

The Importance of Agile – I definitely see how crucial this is for the future of IT, and I will be spending more time researching this methodology.
Are cubes my thing? – I had some difficulty adjusting to cube life, to be honest. I missed interacting with people, and I missed the human interaction that comes with the jobs I’m used to – especially as an RA. It is “food for thought” as I work to figure out what kind of job I want post-college.
The importance of working with people who want you to succeed – Cigna had an amazing, supportive atmosphere. I never once felt unsupported or alone. I know that whatever company I work for, I want that environment.
BA > PM – at least this is true for me! I enjoyed doing BA work – and I really enjoyed my digital media work! This gave me some insight into what jobs I should apply for and where I will excel the most.