"When I was with John, I thought he was the greatest person in the whole world." Then why did you marry Bill, the friend asked. "Because when I'm with Bill, he makes me feel that I'm the greatest person in the world." Technology is not the panacea for business problems. A vendor's product, a vendor's process and a vendor's team are all vitally important...... to the vendor. To…
Read More »"The man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." James Crook A large proportion of OctopOSS projects fail to achieve their original objectives. This suggests that alternate approaches are required within the industry. I once worked on a project that had been guided by five project managers (PM) in two years, each with their own outstanding merits as individuals. But the…
Read More »“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” William Arthur Ward When an organisation identifies that a new OctopOSS project is required, it is common for some or all of the project’s influencers and evaluators to have limited knowledge about a potential vendor’s products. In some cases, they won’t even understand the main concepts of an OSS or…
Read More »“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” Winston Churchill OSS projects are usually delivered to organisations that have many working parts (people, processes, bureaucracies, politics, business units, etc). Rather than closely understanding and adapting to the company, a vendor has a tendency of bringing “best practice” to projects and thrust their standard delivery approach on the customer. One particular…
Read More »Crossing over between worlds isn't just something that John Edward does. Inside Plant (ie active equipment such as switches, routers, multiplexers, etc) is typically managed using Inventory Management software or Configuration Management Databases (CMDB). In this paradigm, a "circuit" is a single link between two entities such as ports on a multiplexer. Outside Plant (eg pits, pipes, cables, splice enclosures, etc) is often managed by GIS…
Read More »Consulting on OctopOSS projects allows the opportunity for endless learning and personal growth like no other profession that I can think of. A tennis player's growth is asymptotic, delivering an ever diminishing improvement for a given amount of training and development effort. A project manager deals with new projects and new people, but the evolution of their art and growth is also somewhat asymptotic. However, the…
Read More »How do you uniquely represent every element within your network landscape under a single naming umbrella? Following on from the introduction of naming conventions, where we covered why an OSS naming convention is so important, the following provides some insights into how to choose a naming convention. When choosing a suitable set of naming conventions under an OSS domain, the following must be taken into consideration: The first…
Read More »A carrier’s network coverage is no longer the dominant differentiating factor that it once was (in deregulated markets anyway). The following are revolutionary drivers of change in the telecommunications industry: Commodotised network services (ubiquitous connectivity), Cloud computing (ubiquitous processing and storage), Changing customer expectations (personalisation, relevance, control, responsiveness and timeliness) Ever increasing bandwidth and Decreasing barriers to entry for new providers It is now clear that innovative…
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