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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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
There’s this phrase that just keeps ringing in my head when I see OSS and BSS in action – “Made by Engineers for Engineers.” This was certainly a badge of honour. If the people who built OSS tools had network engineering experience, then there was a great likelihood that they were building solutions to solve […]
If you’re a regular reader of the PAOSS blog, you might have noticed that we’ve been generating at least one deep-dive tech report per year. Last year it was AIOps of the Future, the year before it was The Most Exciting OSS/BSS Innovations, and Inventory of the Future, etc. We’ve loved using these freely downloadable reports […]
In recent years, we’ve been trying to generate at least one deep-dive tech report per year here at PAOSS. Last year it was AIOps of the Future, the year before it was The Most Exciting OSS/BSS Innovations, etc. They tend to be an itch that we want to scratch for ourselves, but they’ve had an […]
Back in my early days of OSS, I knew there was soooo much to learn. As the signpost below suggests, as well as the OSS applications themselves, there were also adjacent / related fields like databases, networks, services, architecture, programming, and so much more. Pretty daunting! But after a few years in the industry, I […]
We’ve recently been talking about the chasm between OSS buyers and sellers. OSS buyers and sellers desperately need each other to improve the effectiveness of the entire telecommunications industry. The size of the chasm is harming both sides. In part 2 of the “buyer-seller chasm” series, three of the biggest contributing factors were identified as: […]
Have you ever tried to be one of the cool kids and have felt that eerie feeling that you’re going to get shown up for not actually being cool? In the business world we call it imposter syndrome…. but I’m already giving off strong hints about being completely uncool aren’t I? …But let’s push on […]
So you’re about to embark on an OSS transformation project huh? One that involves finding the best-fit solution from the hundreds of OSS/BSS that are available on the market. You’ve already thought long and hard about the build vs buy conundrum and decided that rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, you’ll go with the […]
