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Telecommunications Project

Management

Service Development
Final Thoughts

Service Development
Opportunity analysis
Product definition and project setup
Design and procurement
Development, implementation, and system
testing
Service turn-up
Commissioning and life-cycle
management

Opportunity Analysis and


Concept Definition
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Congruence of the proposed service with the strategic


objectives of the company and its image in the
marketplace.
Service objectives and position with respect to other offers.
Financial objectives in terms of revenues and profitability.
Internal capabilities including the skills and motivation
available workforce.
Regulatory environment.
The various risks that the project could face, include
changing regulations, technology difficulty, market shifts,
etc.

Product Definition and Project


Setup
Clarification of the sponsors objectives and the project
scope
Definition of the project charter, project plan and resources
Specification of the service in terms of the technology and
the market sector to be served.
Sustaining innovation marketing analysis can rely on customary
tools
Disruptive innovation definition tentative and must include agreed
criteria to track the environment and determine when corrective
actions warranted

Estimation and justification of the investment required


through a business case

Product Definition and Project


Setup
Need to explore managements
commitment to stated objectives
1. Establish market presence
2. Increase market penetration
3. Recover the investment and generate
profits

Product Definition and Project


Setup
Project charter
What goals and parameters guide the project
Stakeholders roles and responsibilities
Metrics of success for customer acceptance
Triple constraints performance

Charter is the guide as scope established


and team assembled
Next step is to establish project plan

Project Plan
Various aspects of the project
Scope, resources, communication, quality
management, etc.
Progress indicators, measurements to assess the
client/customer satisfaction indicators, criteria to
track the ongoing project viability
More precise definition of opportunities and threats
Updated view of competition, regulatory environment,
technology trends, and market shifts

Design and Procurement


1. Definition of an architecture to meet
project objective
2. Supplier management
3. Technical definition of service
4. Operations support systems (OSS)
5. Disaster recovery
6. Communications plans

Architecture Design
Geographic span of the service
Performance characteristics
Service availability
Impacts design of the topology
Redundancy requirements
Partitioning or duplication

Supplier Management
Select suppliers
Define the evaluation and acceptance
criteria in the purchase contract
Collaborate with suppliers and exchange
information
Procedures and systems to maintain
records

Technical Definition of the


Service
Documents the planned mix of services
Performance and availability expectations

Anticipated traffic volumes


Geographic and temporal distribution
Billing elements per service
QoS - reliability, availability, lead times

Site Selection
Site to host network equipment PoPs
Site that hosts equipment that can be owned
or rented
Specifications cover floor space, power,
connector types, security, etc.

Work center
Physical site where people provide various
roles such as customer care or network care

Service Operations Technical


Plan (SOTP)
Describes various processes and systems
for sales, ordering, provisioning,
maintenance and capacity management
Covers processes ranging from business
management to network element
management including the OSS

Management Systems Model


Figure 11.3

Support Processes
1. Pre-sales and sales
2. Service ordering
3. Provisioning of the network configuration
according to the terms of contract and the
engineering rules of the network
4. Operation, administration, and maintenance
(OAM)
5. Accounting and billing

Acquisition and Sales


All activities that precede sales
Begins with initial customer contact or
inquiry and ends with signed contract or
hand-off

Operations, Administration, and


Maintenance (OA&M)
Day-to-day service to meet service level
agreements (SLAs)
Capability to diagnose problems and
localize faults
Physical and logical access control
Able to handle internal and external
needs

OSS
Meet needs of internal and external
customers
Internal
Evaluate current usage
Billing
Traffic records

External
Detailed and transparent billing

Maintenance Processes
Reduce outage risk and maintain
performance
1. Type of data collected (e.g.
failure/intrusion)
2. Method for collecting data (intrusive/nonintrusive testing
3. Procedure used to analyze the data
4. Network maintenance organization,
procedures and tools

Scheduled (Routine/Preventive)
Maintenance
Scheduled outages to fix
software/hardware issues
Perform upgrades
Typically done during off-peak hours
Data networks notify customers 4-8
weeks in advance

Unscheduled (Corrective)
Maintenance
Problems such as trunk congestion,
blockage or misrouting of traffic,
transmission cuts
Administrative
Reorganization of workflow for
maintenance and response to failures
Record the details of trouble reports
Customer interface for repairs, outages, etc

Unscheduled (Corrective)
Maintenance
Maintenance
1.Fault identification
2.Network event evaluation
3.Creation of a trouble report
4.Trouble isolation and diagnosis
5.Service restoration and network repair
6.Test and turn-up

Trouble Reports (Tickets) /


Escalation Procedures
Trouble tickets
Date/time of problem, type of problem,
assigned associate, status, symptoms

Escalation procedures
Problem resolution/repair takes longer
than specified in SLA or beyond local
control

Disaster Recovery
1.
2.

3.

4.

Relief activities at the site of the disaster event to reduce the


impact of the disaster on the employees, their families and
communities
Recovery activities to provide a temporary, survival level
of service by reestablishing the most critical business
processes and functions in one or more sites other than
affected site
Restoration activities to fully restore the business functions
or processes to their normal capabilities through rerouting of
traffic, rebuilding of a failed site, movement to a new site,
absorption of the business function into existing facilities,
etc.
Internal and external communication plan

Disaster Recovery
Planning
Identify critical elements that may cause outage
Utilize extensive analysis
Various combinations of factors that cause disruptions
How disruptions happen and how to control

Plan and prepare recovery including management escalation


process
Document the recovery and restoration plans
Approve and distribute the plan
Execute the plan through review, walk-through, or simulation
Establish change control procedures
Continuous improvement

Disaster Recovery
Content of the plan
Recovery team
Events that trigger execution of the plan
Order and flow of activities at recovery site(s)
Decision chain of command in case of unanticipated
events or problems during recovery process
Sequence of tasks and related procedures for
recovery

Development
Equipment handoff
1. Release notes specifying defects that have
been fixed since previous release, known
issues, exception conditions
2. Software installation and back-out
procedures
3. Upgrade/downgrade procedures

Development
System and Integration Testing
Functional tests for product features
System verification test plan and results
Integration test plans and results
Regression test results (new versions of same
software)
Performance characterization test plans/results
7 day soak test 80% capacity without downtime
48 hour stress test Verify equipment can sustain data
rate at full capacity without problems

Network Operations Center


(NOC)
Single point of contact for operations,
management, and administration of
network infrastructure
Human resources
Attract, retain, reward, and develop qualified
associates
Training to ensure transfer of knowledge
Cover local and remote staff

NOC
Return Maintenance Authorization (RMA)
Up to date list of hardware
RMA treatment per category
On-site workforce should have accurate
readout of status
Verify spares are correct revision and in
working order
Measure manufacturers performance

Customer Care
Call-center is typically the main point of
contact
Two key constraints:
Volume of inquiries
Quality of responses

Quality measures
Service queue, wait time, unanswered requests,
average time for resolution, etc

Optimized with automation scripts

Service Turn-up
Installation of Equipment
In-Field Tests
Pilot Trials
Controlled Introduction
General Availability

Service Turn-up
Installing the equipment
Mounting the equipment, cabling,
connections, power, test & turn-up

In-Field Tests
Switch Validation Testing (SVT) turning up
the switch and running diagnostics
Network Validation Test (NVT) Ensures
network element can communicate with the
network

Service Turn-up
In-Field Tests
Operation Readiness Testing (ORT)
Ensures readiness of entire organization before
introduction
1. Methods and procedures developed
2. Administrative processes defined
3. Work center personnel trained
4. All support systems functional

Service Turn-up

Pilot Trials

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Evaluate service delivery capabilities of the infrastructure


Performance of the network with respect to design
requirements
Effectiveness of service delivery
Effectiveness of preventive and corrective maintenance
Effectiveness of the customer care organization with relation
to answering inquiries/complaints
Accuracy of billing
Effectiveness of education and training
Responsiveness of equipment supplier to field problems and
interfaces such as RMA

Service Turn-up
Final Marketing and Sales Plan for General
Availability
Sales and revenue forecasts for the product and for
each market
Pricing and introductory promotions for each
market
Special conditions and rules for provisioning the
service
Training requirements for field and branch office
support

Commissioning and Life-cycle


Management
Lessons learned and closeout
Feedback related to team experience with processes,
tools, techniques, and project organization throughout
the project
Recommendations for future endeavors
Success depends on atmosphere of trust without
blame and finger-pointing
Should be done after each sub-phase rather than at
the end
Outcome is a list of root causes of problems or
successes and a plan how to deal with them

Commissioning and Life-cycle


Management
Quality-of-Service Metrics
Quality of user interface
Availability of meaningful service
instructions and ease of use
Integrity of service from subjective and objective
viewpoints
Network-oriented parameters
Operations management

Commissioning and Life-cycle


Management
Customer Care Performance
Network Performance
Specified in SLA

Commissioning and Life-cycle


Management
Figure 11.6

Business and Network


Evolution
Enhance existing services span
Introduce new services
Evolve network technologies
Figure 11.8

Final Thoughts
Continuity and change
Project success and service success
Competition and government policies
Standardization
Outsourcing

Continuity and Change


Highly specialized knowledge
Potential entrants can not readily replicate
expertise
No matter the size or financial backing
Face branding and customer attraction issues
Develop formal processes for operating services,
managing suppliers, assisting customers
Higher costs for same service quality than
established firms

Project and Service Success


Manage customer expectations
Table 12.1

Competition and Government


Policies
Power of suppliers and customers
Threat of new entrants and substitutes and
rivalry among existing customers
Government addresses:
Basic obligations of service providers
Types of services that should be subsidized
Source of the subsidies and way they are distributed
Competition

Government Policies Continued


Content control
Rules on encryption
Censorship
Intellectual property rights
Patent laws
Copyright laws World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO)

Standardization
Motorola Push-to-talk 3G Migration
Requires identification and articulation
of most important issues
Incremental innovation anticipate
expectations of the users
Radical innovation Maintain
technological neutrality and avoid being
tied to one specific implementation

Outsourcing
Disperse locations of execution
Ensure round-the-clock operation
Off-load fringe activities to specialized providers
Reduce labor costs
Anti-union strategy
Internal operations such as payroll and pension
plan
Human resources administration
IT support

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