Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

Standard Operating Procedures

"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing." Thomas Sowell In many large CSPs, bureaucracy is a way of life. Procedures provide the bureaucrats with a port of consistency within a sea of change. An OctopOSS project is a very threatening beast because it changes organisations and their associated procedures. An OctopOSS project needs a team…

21/01/2013 No Comments

8 Traits of Successful People

"The most successful people in business work differently: 1. They don't create back-up plans 2. They do the work... 3. ...and they work a lot more 4. They avoid the crowds 5. They start at the end... 6. ... and they don't stop there 7. They sell 8. They are never too proud" Jeff Haden in his report on INC.com Does this relate to you and…

20/01/2013 No Comments

Frequent Innovator Programs

"Success comes from doing things differently" Steve McKnight Change is happening faster and faster, so significant investment in innovation is essential for any modern organisation, enforcing ongoing rapid evolution. And if ever there were an industry that thrives on innovation, then OSS would be it. OSS are the product of the information age and it has yet to be mastered, possibly because of the vast amounts…

19/01/2013 No Comments

Increasing your expertise

"An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore." Edward de Bono In what ways can you increase your expertise as an OctopOSS wrangler? The following methods will help guide you: Start with the data. The OctopOSS's data sets will always give insights into how the system works. This includes -…

18/01/2013 No Comments

Give it a try!

"'It's impossible' said pride. 'It's risky' said experience. 'It's pointless' said reason. 'Give it a try' whispered the heart." Author Unknown as sent by InspirationPeak. What is the "it" that your heart is telling you to try? This site is one of mine. There are many more on my list in various states of development. You undoubtedly have many more. That's what makes OSS so exciting.…

17/01/2013 No Comments

Market Control

"Remember, you're trying to control a market, not out-feature another product" Bob Rice in Three Moves Ahead Bob Rice's quote above is really relevant in the OSS marketplace. Vendors appear to compete on the number of features. This is an admirable approach, but is it the equivalent of a car-maker putting a 43rd cup-holder in their new off-road vehicle? There is a diminishing real value of…

16/01/2013 No Comments

OctopOSS Services

"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…

15/01/2013 No Comments

Scarce Resources

"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…

14/01/2013 No Comments

The Gestalt OctopOSS

"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.…

13/01/2013 No Comments

Jack of all Trades

"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…

12/01/2013 No Comments

Satisficing your OctopOSS

"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…

11/01/2013 No Comments

The 1-2-3-4 Formula for Persuasive Copy

"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…

10/01/2013 No Comments

Call to Arms

"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…

09/01/2013 No Comments

Toyota’s Five OctopOSS Whys

"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…

08/01/2013 No Comments

How agile is your OctopOSS?

"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.

07/01/2013 No Comments

OctopOSS Exit Strategies

"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…

07/01/2013 No Comments

Headlights on your OctopOSS

"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…

06/01/2013 No Comments

Where is Michaelangelo?

"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,…

05/01/2013 No Comments

Product vs Operation

"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…

04/01/2013 No Comments

How much will your OSS/BSS cost?

“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…

03/01/2013 No Comments

The Aircraft Carrier Analogy

"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…

02/01/2013 No Comments

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