Minimise the tentacles on the OctopOSS. Keep it simple
“Self-confident people don’t need to wrap themselves in complexity and all that clutter that passes for sophistication in business. Self-confident leaders produce simple plans, speak simply, and propose big clear targets.” Jack Welch. In any line of business, have you ever noticed how the most knowledgeable exponents are also able to break concepts down into […]
Two quotes, one orator, one message today. 1. “Managers muddle – leaders inspire. Leaders inspire with clear vision of how things can be done better.” 2. To empower your people is “to turn them loose, and get the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their feet and the functional barriers out of […]
“The principles of modularity, simplicity, or orthogonality, insofar as they contribute to overall simplicity, are an excellent means to an end; but as a substitute for simplicity they are very questionable” C.A.R. Hoare. There are now hundreds of vendors offering COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) OSS tools, many of which are listed on our vendors/products […]
“Gamification enables you to drive, measure, and reward high-value behaviors by customers or employees. Game mechanics leverage design and behavioral psychology principles inherent in today’s social games to drive and reward specific user behaviors in business environments. Smart gamification elements—such as points, achievements, levels, leaderboards, missions, and contests—can be employed to drive desired behaviors on […]
“People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.” Paulo Coelho. In this article, the insight from Cisco’s Chief Futurist, David Evans provides a view of the future of personal health monitoring. In the future of IoE, the device count will be […]
“An online consumer survey of more than 2,000 smartphone users in the UK and Germany, carried out by billing firm Mach and research agency Opinium in April, found significant demand for direct operator billing, suggesting it could be the preferred payment method of choice for apps and in-app purchases.” James Middleton. Carrier billing is an […]
“Simply providing a voice-and-data pipe out to a customer and collecting a monthly fee no longer is a viable business model. Savvy mobile operators realize this and are deploying OSS/BSS solutions that enable them to analyze how prepaid, postpaid and hybrid customers are using their network and then creating tailored promotions and tariffs tailored to […]
“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” Edsger Dijkstra. Regular readers will note my stance on seeking simplicity in OSS. OSS have many moving parts – hardware, software, processes, people, interfaces, etc all have inherent complexity. But put them all together and you have the main reason why so many OSS projects go over time, over budget and/or […]
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Benjamin Franklin. ITSM’s most oft-used framework, ITIL, is built around a service lifecycle which includes: Service strategy, Service design, Service transition, Service operation and Continual service improvement. There are certainly parallels in OSS. However in my years in OSS, it is the […]
“III. Must-Have Implementation Steps Locate your biggest wins. Educate and get buy-in. Map out one process or practice at a time. IV. The Golden Rules for Maximizing ITIL’s Competitive Advantage Use your tools to understand the customer. Understand your overall strategy and your goals as an organization. Ground everything in configuration management. Use ITIL modularly” […]
“A huge chunk of the brain power we have sitting on our shoulders is devoted to processing visual images. It’s how we communicate. It’s how we share information. It defines who we are… All the great theories of the world are not equations, [rather] they are based on simple principles which can be manifested as […]
“The word “simple” has become so cliché that I try not to use it anymore, but ultimately the point is that things are pretty easy and simple until you make them hard and complicated. So we’re always trying to keep them as simple and easy as they naturally are. So if we have a big […]
“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. […]
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” Bruce Lee. Whether you’re a vendor or a customer, there is a tendency to get lost in the complexity of your OSS. Just as Bruce Lee did with his training, there is complexity waiting to be hacked away from most OSS. There […]
“There’s a battle between what the cook thinks is high art and what the customer just wants to eat.” Mario Batali. If you’re an OSS developer, it’s easy to see all your work as high art. And in many cases it is. There is an amazing sense of achievement to build something so powerful. Unfortunately […]
“Get the habit of analysis – analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.” Frank Lloyd Wright. If you were asked to provide an impartial analysis of an OSS, what factors are important? Every OSS has vastly different functionality but there are several factors that affect the overall experience a user has […]
“Don’t be so familiar and so much into the details. Keep people dreaming. Close the window, and make them wonder.” Celine Dion. The story behind today’s post still vexes me to this day. Yes, Celine Dion vexes me too but that’s a whole other story. In the early 2000’s I was tasked with building a […]
“Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?” T. S. Eliot. We all know OSS hold lots of data. But why? What is the knowledge gained from the information? I believe there are five main types of data that are essential for true business intelligence: Operational data – the near real-time data that allows […]
“You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” Daniel Keys Moran. OSS technologies will undergo changes from any number of directions in coming years and disruptive approaches will undoubtedly morph OSS from their current form. Irrespective of this evolution, we can simplify. The reason that OSS are relevant now and […]
“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” Jim Barksdale. I was discussing performance reporting with a friend yesterday and he made a simple, yet profound statement that I agreed with wholeheartedly. When it comes to performance reporting, it’s not the information presentation that is […]
