OSS Transformation is all about managing change – organisationally, functionally and operationally during in-flight projects. This is the most commonly overlooked factor when planning OSS projects
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 […]
There’s a common belief that most jobs see people rewarded for presence rather than performance. That is, they’re encouraged to be on site from 9am to 5pm rather than being given free reign over their work schedules as long as key outcomes are met / exceeded. In OSS vendor / product selection there’s a similar […]
Automation is about using machines / algorithms to respond faster than humans can, or more efficiently than humans can, or more accurately than humans can… but only if the outcomes justify the costs. When it comes to automations, it’s a case of, “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.” The more complex the decision […]
One of the challenges with getting a new OSS or OSS transformation project completed can be the large number of dependencies that can cause momentum gridlock. If you’re looking to deliver business value in one big-bang, which is a really common approach to delivering OSS projects, then you end up juggling many different activities and […]
“When a project appears to be in limbo, in a permanent holding pattern, where sunk costs meet opportunity costs, where no one can figure out what to do… Cancel it. Cancel it with a week’s notice. One of two things will happen: A. A surge of support and innovation will arrive, and it won’t be […]
“Network slicing opens new business opportunities for operators by enabling them to provide specialized services that deliver specific performance parameters. Guaranteeing stringent KPIs enables operators to charge premium rates to customers that value such performance. The flip side is that such agreements will inevitably come with tough contractual obligations and penalties when the agreed KPIs […]
“ONAP provides a comprehensive platform for real-time, policy-driven orchestration and automation of physical and virtual network functions that will enable software, network, IT and cloud providers and developers to rapidly automate new services and support complete lifecycle management. By unifying member resources, ONAP is accelerating the development of a vibrant ecosystem around a globally shared […]
As you already know, there are two categories of downtime – unplanned (eg failures) and planned (eg upgrades / maintenance). Planned downtime sounds a lot nicer (for operators) but the reality is that you could call both types “incidents” – they both impact (or potentially impact) the customer. We sometimes underestimate that fact. Today’s question […]
“The iPhone disrupted the handset business, but has not disrupted the cellular network operators at all, though many people were convinced that it would. For all that’s changed, the same companies still have the same business model and the same customers that they did in 2006. Online flight booking doesn’t disrupt airlines much, but it […]
The diagram below attempts to show how the entire market (whether that’s the supplier-side or the buyer-side) will absorb a given new feature. The leaders pick up the concept at T0 and then it takes another few years before the laggards implement it. Most of us in the OSS implementation world crave to be at […]
When selecting new applications for an OSS or to augment an existing OSS, it always makes sense to me to run a Proof of Concept. But what do we want to demonstrate in that PoC? For me, we want to run demonstrations of the factors (eg features, use-cases, processes, etc) that justify the investment. A […]
“If your partners don’t have to talk to you then you win.” Guy Lupo. Put another way, the best form of customer service is no customer service (ie your customers and/or partners are so delighted with your automated offerings that they have no reason to contact you). They don’t want to contact you anyway (generally […]
I was lucky enough to get some time of a friend recently, a friend who’s running a machine-learning network assurance proof-of-concept (PoC). He’s been really impressed with the results coming out of the PoC. However, one of the really interesting factors he’s been finding is how frequently BAU (business as usual) changes in the OSS […]
A friend and colleague has recently been talking about a Ferrari analogy on a security project we’ve been contributing to. The end customers have decided they want a Ferrari solution, a shiny new, super-specified new toy (or in this case toys!). There’s just one problem though. The customer has a general understanding of what it […]
We’ve heard of OSS being an acronym for operational support systems, operations support systems, even open source software. I have a new one for you today – Optimisation Support Systems – that exists for no purpose other than to drive a mindset shift. “I think we have to transition from “expectations” in a hype sense […]
I often talk about OSS being an afterthought for network teams. I find that they’ll often design the network before thinking about how they’ll operationalise it with an OSS solution. That’s both in terms of network products (eg developing a new device and only thinking about building the EMS later), or building networks themselves. It […]
Let me ask you a question – when you’ve expanded your bag of tricks that help you to manage your OSS, where have they typically originated? By reading? By doing? By asking? Through mentoring? Via training courses? Relating to technical? People? Process? Product? Operations? Network? Hardware? Software? Design? Procure? Implement / delivery? Test? Deploy? By […]
One of the biggest challenges of big bang OSS project implementations is that all of the business value (ie the OSS and its data, workflows, integrations, etc) gets delivered at once, normally at the end of a lengthy exercise. Ok, ok, so the delivery of value is not a challenge, it’s the implications of a […]
There’s a concept in sales called “risk reversal” that takes all of the customers’ likely issues with a product and provides answers to alleviate customer concerns. I believe we can apply the same concept to OSS, not just to sell them, but to design them. To borrow from a risk register page here on PAOSS, the […]
“One business customer, for example, may require ultra-reliable services, whereas other business customers may need ultra-high-bandwidth communication or extremely low latency. The 5G network needs to be designed to be able to offer a different mix of capabilities to meet all these diverse requirements at the same time. From a functional point of view, the […]
