"It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served." Napoleon Hill Have you ever noticed that the most successful* OSS integrators/vendors are more heavily focussed on providing services than products? * Note: The term successful is in terms…
Read More »"Customers are the centre of the universe" Anne Mulcahy What are the resources that stop a company from growing? Capital? Yes, companies are measured on KPIs like Return on Equity and other accounting terms. Skilled resources? Yes, each OSS vendor's solution is so unique that there is a dearth of resources able to be highly productive for them, even if there are many other OSS experts…
Read More »"The whole is other than the sum of the parts" Kurt Koffka Early proponents of Gestalt Theory like Koffka indicated that humans perceive a whole solution (eg water) quickly and intuitively before taking the time to consider the constituent parts (eg rain drops, water molecules, etc). The 80/20 rule of human perception?? User Interfaces generally adhere to Gestalt Design whether the designer knows it or not.…
Read More »"Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one" When it comes to the OctopOSS, the Jack of all Trades tends to be the only one capable of bringing all of the pieces together. In the modern world of increasing specialisation, it is easier to find (or replace!) someone with skills in a single domain (eg programming, transmission networks, service management…
Read More »"Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel Prize for economics... identified a decision strategy he calls satisficing: selecting the first option that works. Satisficing is different from optimizing, which means trying to come up with the best strategy. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient. The singular evaluation strategy is based on satisficing. Simon used the concept of satisficing to describe…
Read More »"The formula in a nutshell: 1. What I’ve got for you 2. What it’s going to do for you 3. Who am I? 4. What you need to do next" Joan Harrington on workwithjoanharrington.com So let's apply this formula to PassionateAboutOSS.com 1. What I’ve got for you PassionateAboutOSS provides tools, insights and information to help you to implement OSS project (that's Operational…
Read More »"No organisation claimed that its success was due to the superior MIS, at least in terms of any formal IT-based systems.... However, the winning organisations were in general rather critical of their IT-based systems." Hubbard et al in "The First XI - Winning Organisations in Australia" The above statment reads like a call to arms for software vendors. The above-mentioned book is an in-depth analysis of Australia's…
Read More »"The 5 Whys is a question-asking technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem" Wikipedia It is well known that many OSS projects fail to deliver against their initial objectives, some failing to deliver any outcomes at all. There are many reasons why. As mentioned in…
Read More »"Agility means that you are faster than your competition. Agile time frames are measured in weeks and months, not years." Michael Hugos Our Requirements Capture Page has just been updated to include a template showing how we capture requirements using the Agile User Stories method.
Read More »"It is very difficult to get a project approved at Lend Lease, because: - An enormous amount of due dilligence is required to be undertaken in order to understand all the risks - It must be clear that the project has drawn on existing expertise and experience within Lend Lease - The project faces high financial hurdles for approval - The project must have access to the…
Read More »"There's no other breakthrough in management that I know of that has as much bang for the buck as information technology." Bask Iyer, CIO of Juniper on CIO.com The link above is an interesting article describing how IT is seen to be a mechanism for driving efficiency, but not often as a means of driving growth. The same would ring true for almost all CSPs and…
Read More »"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." Michelangelo It strikes me that the worker of today focuses on an ever-narrower field of specialisation. Cross-functional teams offer a means of cross-pollenisation of ideas between specialists in their fields but does each individual in the team still have their own blinkered view of the situation? By contrast,…
Read More »"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency." Bill Gates Variation is the enemy of continual improvement, so once your OSS is operational you are seeking conformity, continuity, reliability and ever improving efficiencies. In contrast, as a vendor…
Read More »“If I was slashed and cut into pieces, over and over again, and put into the mill and ground into flour, burnt by fire and mixed with ashes - even then, I could not estimate Your Value.” Sri Guru Granth Sahib You ask all the difficult questions don't you? Actually, "how much will this cost" is a common question asked by organisations that is about to…
Read More »"The Navy has both a tradition and a future--and we look with pride and confidence in both directions." Admiral George Anderson In days gone by, CSPs enjoyed command of the sea. Their boats were big, powerful and mobile enough to move around world. However, due to their size it requires significant planning and effort for a CSP to change direction. The newer DSP, OTT and content communications…
Read More »“For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” T.S. Eliot Happy new year! 2013 is the year that PassionateAboutOSS.com is officially launched. This blog-roll will continue to pose another voice, making a beginning towards a better OctopOSS
Read More »“Operators are currently at a beginner’s level of capability exposure for developers. They need to step up their game, look at how enterprises have solved this problem. Deliver a rich, secure, reliable, well managed API framework that makes applications both cool and reliable over their networks, else developers will simply choose OTT providers” Sean O’Sullivan Incumbent CSPs are under threat of losing revenue share to OTT…
Read More »"Over 60 years ago, broadcast television introduced channels 1-10 in the U.S., and, furthering this momentum, channelization provided channels 11-1,000 via cable and satellite in the 1980s. As this decade is earmarked by seismic technology and media changes, the next few years will be laser-focused on creating the next 100,000 channels – delivered across a mix of broadcast, cable, mobile and smart TV apps – each…
Read More »“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” Robert Frost In recent years there has been a proliferation of professional mentoring in many fields of business. I just did a Google search and didn't find a single OSS mentor. A keyword search showed that nobody was looking for one either. It seems there is no demand, hence no supply. If Tiger Woods perceived the need for…
Read More »"For Porter, the ultimate profit potential of an industry is a finite fixed amount: the only question is who is going to get which share of it.Sound business is however unlike warfare or sports in that one company’s success does not require its rivals to fail. Unlike competition in sports, every company can choose to invent its own game. As Joan Magretta points out, a better…
Read More »"Even if you're Apple, it's not about you" Sonia Simone In a healthy personal relationship, each partner is approximately equal. In a healthy business relationship, there is a vast difference in balance. As a business, if you: Listen to the customer far more than you talk Give more time and attention to your customer base than they give to you Are more considerate of the customer's…
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