The Critical Importance of UI/UX/CX Optimisation in OSS/BSS Solutions

In the highly competitive domain of Operational Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS), standing out isn’t just about offering a comprehensive set of features. It’s about delivering an exceptional user interface (UI), user experience (UX), and customer experience (CX). Despite this, it seems that the prioritisation of UI / UX / CX is […]

Can LLMs help us to reimagine what the OSS of the future looks like?

I love blogs. One of the amazing things about them is that it allows you to hear the wisdom of exceptional individuals who you’d otherwise never have access to or ever have the chance to meet. They’re the best mentors you never had. One example of that was in last week’s post from David Heinemeier […]

Monthly OSS / Telco In-Person Meetup

Passionate about OSS and Telco – Locals Lunch Held at Noon on the Second Friday of Each Month. Held at the Golden Hills Brewery – 25 Station St, Diamond Creek VIC  (see map below) The doors open at noon. Join us for an informal meetup called “Passionate about OSS and Telco – Locals Lunch,” held at […]

Steve Jobs Said 1 Habit Separates the Doers From the Dreamers

This article by Jeff Haden in Inc Magazine, “30 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said 1 Habit Separates the Doers From the Dreamers,” has made me re-think the way I work, but also reconsider the way the OSS / telco industry works. “One of my least favorite things to do is ask for help. Not only […]

What types of training does the OSS / telco industry need? What do you need?

I’d love to get your perspective on something. In recent times, quite a few people have reached out to suggest that PAOSS should create a comprehensive OSS/BSS training programme because there’s nothing really suited to their needs available on the market today. A couple of these people have suggested that the TM Forum courses are […]

Listening to the Customer: How can we create more value for you?

We’ve just started an exciting new project in the last couple of weeks and have had some great workshops with the client’s exec & project teams. This client has an ambitious target of multiplying their revenues several-fold over the next few years. The systems transformation we’re planning will be a fundamental building block to help […]

Network Operations Ninja Academy (NONA) of the Future

We were honoured to be guests on the Zero-Touch Telecom (ZTT) show last week. The discussion mainly revolved around a highly problematic skills gap that’s likely to widen between network masters and apprentices once we introduce significant automation via tools such as AIOps and the like. In response, Michael P. asked a great question, “With the […]

Sharing a chat from the Zero-Touch Telecom show

Are you as fascinated with automation, AIOps, zero-touch networking, autonomous networking and the like? If so, you might like to listen in on a chat I had with Geoff Hollingworth of Rakuten Symphony on the “Zero-Touch Telecom Show” In it, we talked about some of the concepts from recent content here on PAOSS including: The […]

12 dilemmas that we face on the journey to zero-touch operations

There’s a common misnomer that AIOps and Network Automation solutions are just stood up and a bunch of people are stood down. That is, as soon as the tools become operational, the network operator can start reducing head-count. Project sponsors pray for it (to justify their business cases), network operations staff fear it (for the […]

9 rainmaker techniques that help to deliver OSS/BSS transformations

If you’re a technologist (eg enterprise architect, developer, BA, tech PM, CTO, etc) who has been tasked with implementing significant technological and business transformation in a company accustomed to stasis or incremental changes, effective persuasion is crucial. We’ve spoken previously about the importance of rainmakers, how they’re the real heroes behind OSS-led transformations. As described […]

Future Scenario Planning: The “Open Tech Frontiers” Scenario (part 4)

We’ve embarked on a journey of trying to plan for the future of OSS/BSS, not by predicting the future, but by seeking ways to be ready for possible future situations by using Peter Schwartz’s scenario planning technique. Using this technique, we’ve identified four possible future scenarios for telco based on two high-impact variables (tech growth […]

The OSS Golf Analogy

Over the years, I’ve often referred to The Corkscrew Analogy or Momentum Spiral to describe a mindset of incremental improvement that’s needed to keep an OSS project moving forward. Rather than trying to jump straight from scratch (blue dot) to perfection / completion (yellow dot), it’s far more helpful to make many smaller steps and […]

Future Scenario Planning: The “Regulated Innovation” Scenario (part 3)

We’ve embarked on a journey of trying to plan for the future of OSS/BSS, not by predicting the future, but by seeking ways to be ready for possible future situations by using Peter Schwartz’s scenario planning technique. Using this technique, we’ve identified four possible future scenarios for telco based on two high-impact variables (tech growth […]

Future Scenario Planning: Four Possible Scenarios (part 2)

As discussed in the previous article, “Future Scenario Planning: Have you given up on doing an OSS transformation? (part 1)” part of the fun of OSS/BSS transformation is trying to imagine the future environment, 5-10 years from now, when your transformed OSS/BSS is still servicing the needs of your future stakeholders. But what does that […]

Future Scenario Planning: Have you given up on doing an OSS transformation? (part 1)

Earlier in the week, a friend mentioned he was reading “Alchemy” by Rory Sutherland.  It’s not an OSS book per se, but does provide some great examples for helping us think in original ways – a must-have skill for any OSS practitioner! “Alchemy” helps with some really lateral ways for re-framing problems. In one example, […]

The Telco DAO (TDAO): Does it represent the future of telco business models?

In recent articles, we’ve discussed how Private Equity (PE) could help to reshape the struggling telecommunications business models and how OSS/BSS stacks touch almost every part of a telco business model without most people even realising it (as per the diagram below). We’ve also discussed how the pragmatism of Tier-2 telco thinking could be a […]

The OSS/BSS-led playbook for Private Equity-based improvement of the telco industry

In recent years, we’ve seen a rise in traditional telecommunications providers selling off tranches of tower assets. These sell-offs have likely occurred for a variety of reasons – to help fund 5G roll-outs, to pay down debt, to invest in further digital transformation projects, etc. In short, capital demands / ambitions appear to often exceed […]

No telco wants to buy an OSS/BSS

When you’re a senior exec in a telco and you’ve been made responsible for allocating resources, it’s unlikely that you ever think, “gee, we really should give our operations teams some new operations systems (OSS/BSS) to work with.” It would be nice if they did, but that’s just not what they’re thinking about. For the […]

An OSS Buyer’s Experience Journey – An Emotional Roller-coaster

I really liked this article from Guy Brunsdon called, “Using the Buyer’s Journey Model for Internal Alignment.” It’s certainly not written for the world of telco / OSS specifically, but it certainly resonated with some of the challenges we face. In Guy’s article, he states: I’ve always liked the “Buyer’s Journey” model, which describes a […]