TELECOMS PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Delivered Revenue Assurance for 3 Network / global network separation for Acision / Service Assurance for Logica and managed knowledge transfer to Bangalore for Service Assurance project.

3 Network – Technical Delivery Manager

Revenue Assurance Project

  • Scenario – 3 Network were unable to account for all revenues due
  • Task – Deliver new software product to integrate with existing systems , design and build new connectivity to support such.
  • Actions
  • I created an end to end delivery plan with buy in of business stakeholders, 3rd party s/w house WeDo , Wipro team, 3 Network systems development internal lead and test team.
  • Reworked the original commercial contract with WeDo to match agreed milestone deliveries in the delivery plan
  • Managed creation of a new network design and implementation to enable WeDo access to production system (separate RA network) for upgrades and fault fixing
  • Actions
  • Ensured business and delivery buy in to the new approach (emphasis on solution design to ensure system interfaces designed correctly and RA product configured with S/W that 3 needed)
  • Initiated workshop design reviews with subject matter experts and system owners to enable real understanding of what needed to be built
  • Delivered required artefacts at each stage of a gated process to gain authority to proceed
  • Established steering committee with business & all delivery teams for status updates and escalation point
  • Result
  • RAIDv7 (Revenue Assurance product) went live in 3 Network production in December 2015

Stakeholder Management

  • BPM was unwilling initially to accept the need for WeDo to collaborate for workshop design (I explained the difference between of the shelf s/w and s/w which needs to interact with existing systems)

Network Design/Build

  • Issues regarding security to allow third party access to live system – solution was RAIDv7 database access only with 3rd party multi factor authentication

Business / Third Parties/Internal technical teams

  • Build one project team through logical positive management – gain buy in through explaining the approach –  why we are doing it this way – and have a clear plan supporting such that all the team will understand
  • Issues and Risks -Have alternative paths for delivery – (I ran risk workshops to create activities to address in the delivery plan)

Logica – Senior Telecommunications PM

Acision Network Separation Project

  • Scenario – Logica wished to divest Acision
  • Task – Create new WAN , Lan’s & VOIP capability globally for Acision
  • Actions
  • Created a delivery plan to switch users from Logica network to new Acision global network and provide VOIP
  • Brainstormed overall plan with 2 technical architects one for network switching and one for VOIP for different geographies
  • Planned and managed a proof of concept of switching with Prague technical team
  • Got buy in to phased take up approach with Acision business team
  • Result – Acision were able to operate independently within contractual divestment period with no loss to operations

Project Challenges

  • Budget – Was predefined before any plan was in place to deliver separation/ I had to fit with what was there already – service went live in some locations with minimal testing
  • Senior Manager (Director Level) – Disagreed with phased approach and wanted big bang across all geographies, I had to strongly argue the case for less risk to new Acision business by separating sites on a site by site basis over a planned period of time (technical architects were pleased I reported directly to the senior manager as they felt his approach would not work and was too high risk)

Outcome

  • Separation was delivered in UK, Europe, Middle East, India, Far East and USA. 

Logica – Senior Telecommunications PM

  • Scenario – Logica wished to offer telecom providers new service assurance product
  • Task – Deliver new product (Service Assurance) whilst transitioning development and test to offshore
  • Actions:
  • Managed knowledge transfer activity to offshore staff (offshore – onshore)
  • Ensured technical specification was comprehensive for build and test teams offshore
  • Gained agreement for lead developer to travel to Bangalore to continue knowledge transfer and handover to development and test teams offshore
  • Result
  • Service Assurance product was sold to Orange

Logica Infrastructure Delivery PM

  • Scenario – RBS wanted to have data cleansing performed offshore by Hays IT Sri Lanka for all Nat West current accounts prior to migrating to RBS database
  • Task – Draw up a plan to deliver solution to enable data cleansing offshore
  • Actions
  • Ran a PID workshop with technical experts to understand who, how, what, where, when
  • Created end to end delivery schedule – with input from all technical SME’s
  • Involved capex and staff costs (extra bandwidth, Connect Direct consultant to extract data packages and transfer such to Hay’s IT, network security consultant)
  • Managed infrastructure team for cleansed data migration from Nat West DB to RBS DB over a week end
  • Results – Cost of data cleansing offshore was one sixth of onshore/ data (customer accounts) transferred securely to RBS