OSS are tools have a big part to play in modern ICT organisations. They can make the difference between effective or ineffective operations of electronic assets. The Executive Series of blogs provide information that is targeted for senior executives on how to utilise OSS to deliver better business outcomes.
Yesterday’s post about egos in OSS contained the following Dilbert cartoon: . It reminded me of a story from many years ago. I was working in a developing country, advising the board of a tier-one telco on the implementation of their first-ever OSS (they’d only ever operated their networks at NMS level previously). During the […]
Yesterday we talked about the cuckoo-bird analogy and how it was preventing telcos from building more valuable platforms on top of their capital-intensive network platforms. Thanks to Dean Bubley, it gave examples of how the most successful platform plays were platforms on platforms (eg Microsoft Office on Windows, iTunes on iOS, phones on physical networks, […]
“The cuckoo bird is infamous for laying its eggs in other birds’ nests. The young cuckoos grow much faster than the rightful occupants, forcing the other chicks out – if they haven’t already physically knocked the other eggs overboard. (See “brood parasitism”, here). Analogies exist quite widely in technology – a faster-growing “tenant” sometimes pushes […]
With the holiday period looming for many of us, we will have the head-space to reflect – on the year(s) gone and to ponder the one(s) upcoming. I’d like to pose the rhetorical question, “What do you expect to reflect on?” It’s probably safe to say that a majority of OSS experts are engaged in […]
The diagram below provides a time-sequence view of how tech-debt accumulation eventually strangles new OSS feature releases unless the drastic measures described are taken. At start-up (t0), the system is brand new and has no legacy to maintain, so all effort can be dedicated to delivering new features (or products) as well as testing to […]
Are your OSS better today than they were 5 years ago? (or 10, 15, 20 years depending on how long you’ve been in the industry) Your immediate reaction to this question is probably going to be, “Yes!” After all, you and your peers have put so much effort into your OSS in the last 5 […]
“Corporate innovation is far more dependent on external collaboration and customer insight than having a ‘lab’.” Andy Howard in a fabulous LinkedIn post. Like so many other industries, OSS is ripe for disruption through innovation. Andy Howard’s post provides a number of sobering statistics for any large OSS vendors thinking of embarking on an Innovation […]
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” Bill Gates. The pervading OSS business case paradigm is to seek cost-out by introducing automation that reduces head-count – […]
“The original management consultant was Frederick Taylor, who prided himself in having discovered the “one best way” which would be delivered by “first-class men”. These assumptions, made in 1911, are still dominant today. Best practice is today’s “one best way” and recruiters, HR and hiring managers spend months and months searching for today’s “first-class men”. […]
When looking at a telco org chart, where does the highest staff turnover tend to occur? Contact centres? Network Operations? The fact that these two groups tend to have the highest turnover indicates that their employers see them as expendable resources. They’ll never come out and say it directly, but actions speak louder than words. […]
I have a really simple philosophical question to pose of you today – Are we measuring our OSS at the wrong end? It seems that a vast majority of our OSS measurement is at the input end of a process rather than at the output. Just a few examples: Financial predictions in a business cases vs Return […]
Guns don’t kill people, people do. Similarly, Technology doesn’t kill OSS projects, people do… Actually people with technology do. The following shows the escalation of global CAPEX allocated by CSPs over the last thirty years (in current currency).. apart from a few brief years around the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The CAPEX uplift also represents […]
OSS is a powerful multi-purpose tool, much like a hammer. If OSS is my only tool, do I see all problems as nails that I have to drive home with my OSS? The downside of this is that it then needs to be designed, built, integrated, tested, released, supported, upgraded, data curated and maintained. The […]
Since reading the first book on this list, I’ve become a very avid and wide-ranging reader. The seeds sown by the book list below have immensely helped enrich the content you see here on the PAOSS blog and other PAOSS content. These are the books that have most inspired me or influenced my thinking. Sometimes […]
“Forcing people to follow new rules is always an uphill battle, but getting them to buy into a concept to the point where they start contributing their own ideas can literally create a movement within an organisation.” Ken Segall. I’ve really diverted away from direct discussions about OSS in a couple of recent posts about […]
An asset is something that puts money into your pocket every month. A liability takes money out. Based on those very simple terms, is your OSS an asset or a liability? If a liability, does it aspire to be an asset? By that, I mean are you actively doing stuff to make it profitable in […]
“The only way to get rid of Dirty Tickets of Work (DToW) is to get rid of Tickets of Work (ToW)” DToW is terminology used in Telstra to indicate that incorrect information has been entered into the ToW or where the field tech hasn’t been able to complete the ToW as originally designed / planned. […]
The following quick checklist will give you a feel for whether your OSS is too complex for general users: Who are the personas that interact with your OSS (give those personas names and attributes to give life to them) What are they trying to achieve with your OSS (what specific use cases do they fulfil) […]
Something dawned on me recently – People who want to save money don’t want to spend money. That statement has more profound implications for the world of OSS than you might initially think. Let me explain. If someone’s main priority is to save money, what are the chances that they’ll spend money to buy a […]
Let’s say you act for a service provider and the diagram below represents the number of variations you could offer to customers – the number that are technically supported by your solution. That’s 13,824,000 colours. By comparison, the following diagram contains just 20 colours: If I asked you what colours are in the upper diagram, […]
