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
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson. The great thing about Engineers is the solution is always black and white. It has to be perfect or it’s not complete. Well, I’m a qualified Engineer, but I’m not qualified to be an Engineer by these generalisations. You’re probably sick of […]
“A core component of Lean Startup methodology is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible. Once the MVP is established, a startup can work on tuning the […]
“Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” Sydney J. Harris. There are many dilemmas facing the organisation that is attempting to select a new OSS vendor, including: The need to change vs the difficulties […]
“You don’t need to be better. You need to be different.” Chase Jarvis. PassionateAboutOSS.com and my book came into existence due to a distinct gap in the OSS market that I’d noticed again and again whilst on customer assignments. As represented in the diagram below, there was a major disconnect between the Technology Context and […]
“Ideally, analytics-driven telcos must have predictive analytics embedded in all their business processes, thereby moving away from decisions based on gut feeling or intuition. [The Figure below] illustrates the four phases of a telco customer life cycle – Acquisition, Relationship, Retention and Win-back. Each phase can have several embedded analytical models, which can enhance operations considerably and provide a […]
“Consider as a marker the speed of travel. It improved dramatically through the late 19th and early 20th centuries with major innovations such as trains, automobiles, airplanes, jet engines and rockets. But the big advances came to an end in the 1970s. Movement by car now is no faster than it was then – indeed […]
“But do you want to get better? It seems like a stupid question. Of course we want our organization, our work and our health to improve. But often, we don’t. Better means change and change means risk and risk means fear… There are countless ways to listen, to engage with users, to learn and to […]
“Today, the FBAR service [Facebook Auto-Remediation] is developed and maintained by two full time engineers, but according to the most recent metrics, it’s doing the work of approximately 200 full time system administrators. FBAR now manages more than 50% of the Facebook infrastructure and we’ve found that services have dramatic increases in reliability when they […]
“Technology provides no benefits of its own; it is the application of technology to business opportunities that produces ROI.” Robert McDowell. Let’s have a look at the quote above in the context of CSP service offerings, technology delivery methods and customer experiences. Let’s start with POTS – Plain Old Telephony Service. The customer experience (ie […]
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” Henry Ford. I have an interesting question to pose to you today dear readers, one that I don’t think has a perfectly right or wrong answer, but one you’re bound to have an opinion on. Let me put the contrasting views to you. Let’s […]
“It turns out that all Netflix streaming peak on Saturday night can fit inside a single fiber optic, which is the size of one human hair.” Reed Hastings. Whilst futurists talk about advances in wireless technology being the death of fibre, higher volumes of wireless traffic equals a larger number of fibre backhaul points… for […]
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” Leonardo da Vinci. Readers of this blog will notice how often I’m looking into the future of what OSS might look like into the future. Today I […]
“So I’m going to tell you, it’s going to be a good year. There are good players all over this country, and it is our job as a scouting department to find them, draft them, sign them, develop them, and help us to continue to win championships. So it’s going to be a good year.” […]
“As long as you don’t make waves, ripples, life seems easy. But that’s condemning yourself to impotence and death before you are dead.” Jeanne Moreau. Have you ever noticed how the applications within some large OSS suites are so tightly bound that their operators are petrified of the ripple effect – where they’re not so […]
“Intent doesn’t change as a result of a link going down, a server crashing, changing cloud providers, changing switch vendors, upgrading firmware or any other change to the infrastructure.” David Lenrow, chair of the ONF Northbound Working Group, who recently hosted the Intent-based Summit, which has passed a proposal to commence work on the Network […]
“Security experts are such a cheery lot. They’ll usually tell you you’re doing everything wrong and that we’re all doomed.” Craig Matsumoto in an article here. I don’t profess to be a network security expert, but I can’t help but thinking that network virtualisation will bring security and OSS experts far closer together than ever […]
“What the early adopter is buying, is some kind of change agent. By being the first to implement this change in their industry, the early adopters expect to get a jump on the competition, whether from lower product costs, faster time to market, more complete customer service, or some other comparable business advantage. They expect […]
“Do you think that such a role (a Chief Simplification Officer or Project Simplification Officer) is justified? If so, what do you think are the essential traits that this person would need?” I posed these questions in a recent article entitled, “Chief Simplification Officer,” so rather than just leave you with an open question, today […]
“What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?” Tony Robbins. Complexity is the single biggest challenge that stands in the way of us delivering OSS masterpieces. As described in, “The triple constraint of complexity,” the reduction of any complexity should have a multiplier effect towards the […]
“You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.” George S. Patton. Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with the use of Seth Godin’s thrashing principle in OSS to attempt to get a scope locked in and developed against. The reality is that despite all the […]
