Build an OSS and they will come… or sometimes not

Build it and they will come.

This is not always true for OSS. Let me recount a few examples.

The project team is disconnected from the users – The team that’s building the OSS in parallel to existing operations doesn’t (or isn’t able to) engage with the end users of the OSS. Once it comes time for cut-over, the end users want to stick with what they know and don’t use the shiny new OSS. From painful experience I can attest that stakeholder management is under-utilised on large OSS projects.

Turf wars – Different groups within a customer are unable to gain consensus on the solution. For example, the operational design team gains the budget to build an OSS but the network assurance team doesn’t endorse this decision. The assurance team then decides not to endorse or support the OSS that is designed and built by the design team. I’ve seen an OSS worth tens of millions of dollars turned off less than 2 years after handover because of turf wars. Stakeholder management again, although this could be easier said than done in this situation.

It sounded like a good idea at the time – The very clever OSS solution team keeps coming up with great enhancements that don’t get used, for whatever reason (eg non fit-for-purpose, lack of awareness of its existence by users, lack of training, etc). I’ve seen a customer that introduced over 500 customisations to an off-the-shelf solution, yet hundreds of those customisations hadn’t been touched by users within a full year prior to doing a utilisation analysis. That’s right, not even used once in the preceding 12 months. Some made sense because they were once-off tools (eg custom migration activities), but many didn’t.

The new OSS is a scary beast – The new solution might be perfect for what the customer has requested in terms of functionality. But if the solution differs greatly from what the operators are used to, it can be too intimidating to be used. A two-week classroom-based training course at the end of an OSS build doesn’t provide sufficient learning to take up all the nuances of the new system like the operators have developed with the old solution. Each significant new OSS needs an apprenticeship, not just a short-course.

It’s obsolete before it’s finished – OSS work in an environment of rapid change – networks, IT infrastructure, organisation models, processes, product offerings, regulatory shifts, disruptive innovation, etc, etc. The longer an OSS takes to implement, the greater the likelihood of obsolescence. All the more reason for designing for incremental delivery of business value rather than big-bang delivery.

What other examples have you experienced where an OSS has been built, but the users haven’t come?

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