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
Small companies “are uncluttered, simple informal. They thrive on passion and ridicule bureaucracy. Small companies grow on good ideas – regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning. Small companies dream big dreams and set the bar high – increments and fractions don’t […]
“You can’t grow long-term if you can’t eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.” Jack Welch. When it comes to developing an OSS product, the balance of these two mindsets is always a challenge. Does a particular customer requirement today make sense for the […]
“As far as income goes, there are three currencies in the world; most people ignore two. The three currencies are time, income and mobility, in descending order of importance. Most people focus exclusively on income.” Timothy Ferriss. In yesterday’s blog, we discussed how e-business and mobility was impacting ITSM approaches but we didn’t discuss much […]
“Enterprises able to successfully innovate at a breakthrough level are far more likely to dominate and prosper in the new markets they create” From a recent survey conducted by Accenture In the survey discussed above 93% of executive respondents indicated their long-term success relied on innovation. However only one-third felt their organisation were well placed to innovate. […]
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Kenneth Blanchard. Many CSPs are realising the benefits, to themselves and their customers, by diversifying their customer touch points to include new channels. This includes offering self-help and “instant” customer interaction channels (ie web chat, instant messaging, social networking, etc) in addition to the traditional channels such as email, retail […]
“For many people a job is more than an income – it’s an important part of who we are. So a career transition of any sort is one of the most unsettling experiences you can face in your life.” Paul Clitheroe. As a consultant, I’ve had many new roles at many different organisations in different […]
“In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record – it’s easy to discover who’s in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don’t appear on any organization chart.” Gary Hamel. In making the decision to take on a major new OSS project there is normally a significant hierarchy of individuals involved. […]
“I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.” Marilyn Monroe Will there be a time in the not too distant future where traditional telco services become a pure commodity? For example, will users simply plug into socket in their wall and get ubiquitous bandwidth / cloud services […]
“People usually act for their own reasons, not someone else’s reasons. If they do change a behavior because of something someone else has said, most of the time that change won’t stick. The secret of Instant Influence is that it helps people discover their own reasons for doing something, even something they thought they didn’t […]
“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can’t give you a formula for that.” Chet Atkins. In an earlier post entitled “serving an apprenticeship,” I spoke about the length of time it takes for each OSS newbie to reach a state of being productive. […]
“You can’t plan a script. The beauty of improvisation is you are experiencing it in the moment. If you try to plan what the next line is supposed to be, you’re just going to be disappointed when the other people on stage with you don’t do or say what you want them to do and […]
“Much of what is called investment is actually nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of course mergers and acquisitions are generally accompanied by downsizing.” Susan George Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are challenging for their OSS teams on a number of different levels – across technology and personnel. Maintaining business as usual means that all […]
“Cycle time reduction in marketing and sales deals with speeding the time-to-market cycle for new products and services and reducing the order-to-cash cycle time, which produces benefits such as increased cash flows and profits, improved utilisation of human and machine resources, decreased costs and improved customer service” S. Rao Vallabhaneni. OSS can have a big […]
“It is common for us to receive an e-mail from a customer apologizing for not responding sooner because they thought our automated follow-up was being done manually. The key to a successful follow-up program is personalization and making it relevant for the customer.” John Hopkins. Why did Apple’s iPod revolutionise the music industry? Was it […]
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” Rabindranath Tagore. In yesterday’s blog I discussed the aircraft carrier analogy when bringing rapid change into a legacy OSS. The CSPs of the future will need to be based around partnerships. Not just […]
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” Anatole France. In the past, CSPs had such significant barriers to entry and economic clout that they could price almost any smaller player […]
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.” Elizabeth Edwards. Many leading OSS products have been built around concepts […]
“The plan isn’t nearly as important as the planning” Keith Rattie in Hit the Ground Running OSS evolve too quickly to have a single authoritative plan. Planning and re-planning are the key, with the resultant plans just way-points along the journey.
“Everything feels like its on the precipice of some major transformation, whether we like it or not.” Sean Lennon. OSS transformation tends to focus on the activities required to take the OSS from current state to a desired future state (naturally). An OSS Transformation is generally planned around the introduction of new tools, processes and/or […]
“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.” Napoleon Hill No matter what OSS project, or any project you start, capturing the requirements is the first place to start. The requirements help to identify the guiding vision for what you need […]
