The Passionate About OSS Podcast

OSS/BSS stacks can be incredibly complex and cumbersome beasts, especially in large carriers with many different product, process and network variants. We don't make that task any easier by creating many unique product offerings to take to market. And this time to market can be a significant competitive advantage, or be a serious impediment to it. NaaS, or Network as a Service, is a novel approach to increasing flexibility in our OSS/BSS stacks, inserting an API layer that provides a separation of concerns.

Our guest on today's episode, Johanne Mayer, is so passionate about the benefits of NaaS-based transformations that she's formed a company named NaaS Compass(www.naascompass.com) to assist others with their transformations. She provides the hard-won experience from being involved with NaaS transformations at organisations like Telstra.

Prior to embarking on this latest venture, Johanne has also worked with many of the most iconic organisations in the telco / OSS/BSS industries. These include Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent (now part of Nokia), Ericsson, Oracle, Ciena Blue Planet and Analysis Mason. Johanne takes us on a journey through a career that has seen her work on exciting projects from the days of NMS and X.25 networks to more recent projects leading collaborative transformation with standards organisations like TM Forum (where she is a Distinguished Fellow), MEF and ETSI.

For any further questions you may have, Johanne can be found at: www.linkedin.com/in/johannemayer

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Our OSS and BSS are highly complex by nature. However, we seem to do a great hob of making them more complex, more challenging, less repeatable and hence, more difficult to change. Perhaps that caters to our deeper desires - so many of us in this industry love to prove our worth by solving complex problems

Our guest on this episode, George Glass, has spent a career looking for ways to remove complexity and increase re-use in our OSS/BSS stacks. First during 31 years (to the day) working as a developer, architect and executive at BT. Now at TM Forum, where he's CTO and continuing to carry the flame of next generation architectural concepts like ODA and the Open API initiative that started when George was still at BT.

George walks us through a career that started with cutting code on BT's NMS solutions and the charging systems that allowed BT to drive (significant) revenue. He talks us through very early separation of charging, taking it away from mainframes and onto Unix server farms. He also discusses how he was instrumental in the development of BT's SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) in circa 2008-9 that generated over £300M in cost-benefit for BT and remains in use (in a modified form) to this day. He also discusses how BT's structural separation to form Openreach had architectural ramifications and learnings tht propagated to other carrier environments around the world.

George then goes on to talk about the origins of TM Forum's modern flagship architectural models and how they're assisting their members with digital transformations globally. Not just telcos and their supporting vendors / partners / integrators, but also across other industries (including George's favourite, the automotive industry).

For any further questions you may have, George can be found at: www.linkedin.com/in/george-glass-887ba61

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

If the network is ultimately the product for any network operator, then OSS/BSS are the great connectors, connecting customers to that product. Both for initial activation, but also ongoing utilisation of network resources. Whilst everyone has a different perspective on the relevance / importance of OSS/BSS, there tend to be even broader divergences of opinion across networks, operations and executive teams.

Our guest on this episode, Carolyn Phiddian, has formed a career around network strategy and is now a gun-for-hire broadband industry strategist. Networks are her main specialty, but she's also held executive roles, including leading a team of nearly 500 people in network operations for a Tier 1 carrier. Carolyn has held roles with iconic telco organisations such as Telstra, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Alcatel-Lucent and more recently with nbn.  Having experienced roles across network, operations and the C-suite within these organisations gives Carolyn a somewhat unique perspective on OSS/BSS.

Carolyn walks us through her career highlights to date but also shares some really important insights and experiences along the way. Some of these include:- that when Architects / Engineers are detailed, rather than big-picture people, then that detail can have the tendency to become hard-wired into their OSS/BSS, which has benefits and ramifications; that one of the biggest challenges for executives and sponsors of OSS/BSS projects is the mismatch between what people want and what they get, often through the stakeholders not knowing what they want or being able to adequately articulate it; and that diversity of thought combined with inquisitiveness are powerful traits for OSS/BSS implementation and operations teams.

For any further questions you may have, Carolyn can be found at: www.linkedin.com/in/carolynphiddian.

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

When it comes to OSS/BSS implementations (and products), Time to Market (TTM) is one of our most important metrics. Not just for the network operator to deliver new offerings to market, but also in getting solutions up and running quickly. Faster TTM provides the benefits of cost reduction and faster turn-on of revenue, but potentially allows the operator beat competitors to the acquisition of new customers.

Our guest on this episode, Greg Tilton, has spent many years building OSS and BSS with this key metric in mind. Initially with carriers / ISPs such as Telstra, Request, AAPT and nbn, but more recently with DGIT Systems (www.dgitsystems.com). Greg is a founder and CEO of DGIT, a company that has been creating BSS products since 2011 across order management, CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), product catalog and billing (through its acquisition of Inomial in 2018).

Greg provides us with a range of helpful hints for improving TTM market across a number of facets. These include project implementations, architecture and product design as well as highlighting the importance of standardisation. On the latter, Greg and DGIT have long held a mutually beneficial relationship with TM Forum (https://www.tmforum.org), being both a consumer of and contributor to many of the standards that are widely used by the OSS/BSS / telco industries (and beyond).

For any further questions you may have, Greg can be found at: www.linkedin.com/in/greg-tilton-a460207 and via www.dgitsystems.com.

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

There are three distinct categories of organisations that interact with OSS/BSS - those who create them, those who use them and those who implement them. But no matter how good the first two are (ie the products / creators and the users), if the implementation isn't done well, then the OSS/BSS is almost pre-destined to fail. There are many, many challenges and pitfalls that await implementation teams. There's a reason why the Passionate About OSS logo is an octopus (the OctopOSS). Just when you think you have all the implementation tentacles under control, another comes and whacks you.

Our guest on this episode, Michael De Boer, has spent many years wrangling the OctopOSS. He's had implementation roles on the buyer / user side with companies like NextGen, but also on the implementer / integrator side with Pitney Bowes. He's also had ultimate accountability for OSS/BSS delivery as Managing Director of Dynamic Design Australia, where he had to quote and sell but also get hands-on with implementations. Now as Director of GQI (https://gqi.com.au), Michael leads integrations and consultancies that extend beyond OSS/BSS and into other areas of ICT.

Michael describes some of his important learnings on how to ensure your OSS/BSS implementation runs smoothly. He pays particular attention to the people management and data management aspects of any implementation, noting that these are vital components of any build.

For any further questions you may have, Michael can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-de-boer-abb60b2 and via https://gqi.com.au.

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Have you noticed the rise in trust, but also the rise in sophistication in Open Source OSS/BSS in recent years? There are many open-source OSS/BSS tools out there. Some have been built as side-projects by communities that have day jobs, whilst others have many employed developers / contributors. Generally speaking, the latter are able to employ developers because they have a reliable revenue stream to support the wages.

Our guest on this episode, Keith Sinclair, has made the leap from side-project to thriving OSS/BSS vendor whilst retaining an open-source model. His product, NMIS, has been around since the 1990s, building on the legendary work of other open-source developers like Tobias Oetiker. NMIS has since become one of the flagship products for his company, Opmantek (https://opmantek.com). Keith and the team have succeeded in creating a commercial construct around their open-source roots, offering product support and value-add products.

Keith retraces those steps, from the initial discussion that triggered the creation of NMIS, its evolution whilst he simultaneously worked at organisations like Cisco, Macquarie Bank and Anixter, through to the IP buy-out and formation of Opmantek, where he's been CTO for over 10 years. He also describes some of the core beliefs that have guided this journey, from open-source itself, to the importance of automation, scalability and refactoring. The whole conversation is underpinned by a clear passion for helping SysAdmins and Network Admins tackle network assurance challenges at service providers and enterprises alike. Having done these roles himself, he has a powerful empathy for what these people face each day and how tools can help improve their consistency and effectiveness.

For any further questions you may have, Keith can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kcsinclair

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

While it's the tier-1 telco OSS/BSS that get all the attention, it's actually the mid-market that makes up the largest number of OSS/BSS by customer count (in most deregulated telco markets). The mid-market consists of Tier 2/3 telcos and ISPs with subscriber counts measured in the thousands rather than hundreds of thousands or millions. However, the OSS/BSS of this mid-market still has to cover the same broad estate of functionality as the tier-1s.

The dilemma for most of the mid-market is whether to build their own, often highly specific OSS/BSS solutions, or use off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. Each approach comes with its own pros and cons.

Our guest on this episode, Steven White, has lived with this dilemma and navigated through it whilst working for Swoop (formerly known as Cirrus Communications). Along with his CTO, Steven and Cirrus / Swoop took the portal / OSS / BSS (named ATMOS) from concept to home-grown implementation and then ongoing refinement over the last 12 years.

As the designer and lead developer of this solution, Steven describes some of the key steps in this journey. These include the development path they took (including key re-factoring decisions along the way), their journey to cloud, the basis of some truly unique features ATMOS has and why they chose to offer unprecedented visibility to their customers using ATMOS.

For any further questions you may have, Steven can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecodes and https://stevenwhite.com.au as well as https://twitter.com/SteveCodes

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

There are just so many vendors in the OSS/BSS market (our vendor directory has over 400 listings - https://passionateaboutoss.com/directory) that it can be incredibly challenging to differentiate one product or vendor from the next. OSS/BSS customers may only know of a handful of possible solutions, but there are plenty of others out there. Cutting through the product / brand awareness challenge to get the attention of buyers is one of the bigger obstacles facing vendors today. 

Our guest on this episode, Stephen Hateley, knows these challenges intimately. From highly technical origins, Steve has now been bringing his employers' products to the attention of buyers for the last couple of decades. Steve has worked with heavyweights of the OSS/BSS industry including InfoVista, Nokia and previously with recent Nokia acquisitions in Alcatel-Lucent and Comptel. He's now assisting DigitalRoute (https://www.digitalroute.com) to bring its innovative product offerings into a market that meets at the intersection of Enterprise, Telco and the Cloud Hyperscalers.

Steve takes the time to walk us through many of the techniques he uses across product launches and the details of the campaigns that sit behind them. He also discusses the approaches he uses to interact with the many different personalities that make a product launch successful. Marketers like Steve have a vital role, to help make and shape the markets that our products get sold into. It's a fascinating journey, one that we're excited to share with you.

For any further questions you may have, Steve can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-hateley-marketing/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

You've possibly been inside a NOC (Network Operations Centre) and seen the video wall covered with network maps, activity / alarm / event lists and network health graphs. These OSS tools are the ultimate insurance policy for any organisation that runs a network. They help coordinate the activities to repair a network when the inevitable network outages and degradations happen.

Our guest in this episode, David Nestic, deeply understands the importance of these network assurance tools as well as the people and processes that they are designed for. David is the Digital and Technology Strategy Manager at nbn, Australia's wholesale backbone supplier. David has the enviable task of making these solutions more effective, consistent and predictable for the operations teams that use them. Not just in the here and now, but also looking well into the future, using innovative approaches to turn network operations centres into next-generation situational awareness platforms.

David provides insights into the opportunities that are presenting for increased automation and predictive assessment, allowing operations teams to spend less time evaluating and more time resolving the big issues as they arise. He also describes the ways in which long-held approaches such as ITSM frameworks will need to be overhauled to keep pace with these disruptive technologies. He also draws upon parallels from his career journey across Applied Physics and Aviation into the network operations practices of the future.

For any further questions you may have, David can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-nestic-3926a527/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

PS. Apologies for the intermittent sound quality problems on this episode

Much of the focus within OSS/BSS centres around the big-budget projects being done by the Tier-1 telcos. They get attention because there are lots of people involved, lots of OSS horsepower, with big, ambitious goals. But there's another part of the industry that doesn't tend to get so much public recognition - the mid-market telcos and utilities. These OSS/BSS tend to cover just as much scope. They just don't have the same level of resources.

Our guest on this episode, Steven Cocchiarella, knows the challenges of providing a full-stack OSS/BSS for the mid-tier market. He was Director of Information Services and Business Analytics for Smithville (http://www.smithville.com), an independent telco provider in Indiana, USA. He describes the challenges he faced in this role and some of the techniques he used to circumvent some of them. These techniques include the "cut it off and kill it," approach and people + process driven digital transformation (rather than technology-driven transformation).

Steven also outlines the opportunities awaiting the many OSS/BSS vendors supplying mid-market telcos like Smithville. He describes the gaps in current offerings and how they can be done better to provide better outcomes for the mid-market. He also provides examples of how he used Salesforce to provide a wrapper around the monolithic OSS/BSS he inherited, allowing him to have freer control over processes and essential data sets. Steven enjoyed these projects so much that he's now moved on to become a Salesforce Consultant at Growth Heroes (https://growthheroes.com).

For any further questions you may have, Steven can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-cocchiarella-3756b811b/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

While it might sometimes feel like OSS mega projects just happen, there's usually a lot that must first play out up-stream, long before us technologists get the chance to design and build. First someone must spawn the idea, then be able to persuade a bunch of other people, exciting them with the possibilities of the idea. In many cases, this happens on the customer-side with OSS projects. The internal team sees the need and collects the support (and sponsors) to bring an OSS project (and product?) to inception. The customer-side team then typically asks OSS vendors / integrators to compete for the project implementation [The Red Ocean for OSS vendors].

However, our guest in this episode, Ashley Neale, takes us into his world where he's constantly seeking ways to do things differently, to do things better for the customer [The Blue Ocean]. Ashley talks us through his experiences of conceptualising, pitching. persuading and closing a mega project worth well over $100m. Even better than that, he then describes the challenges, pitfalls and scars that he overcame whilst leading the delivery of that project, building an OSS/BSS almost from scratch.

Ashley then takes us on his career journey from an IT course at uni, to helping Engineers to sell, through to his current role developing strategic markets for Vocus. He also shares his big-picture perspective on what we can do better and where the big opportunities still lie in the OSS industry.

For any further questions you may have, Ashley can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyneale/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Ashley promised to provide references to further reading in this podcast. Here it is in all its glory. Some brilliant titles amongst them:

Sales

The Challenger Sale – Mathew Dixon

Pitch Anything – Oren Klaff

Psychology of Selling – Brian Tracy

SPIN Selling – Neil Rackham

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale – Brian Carroll

Cracking the Sales Management Code – Jason Jordan & Michelle Vazzana

Understanding Business

Good to Great – Jim Collins

Great by Choice – Jim Collins

Built to Last – Jim Collins

The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz

How to Design a Great Customer Experience – Fred Wiersema

What’s your customer’s problem? – Fred Wiersema

Lean Startup – Eric Ries

Understanding People

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance – Angela Duckworth

Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell

Blink – Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath – Malcolm Gladwell

Think Like a Freak - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

Superfreakonomics – Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harai

Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson

Francis Haysom is a Principal Analyst for Appledore Research Group, a global research and consulting firm specialising in the telecommunication and software markets with a particular focus on OSS/BSS.

In this episode, Francis takes us on a ride through his career leading OSS/BSS innovation across the last three decades with iconic companies such as Convergys, Cramer, Amdocs, Telcordia and Ericsson. He then takes us into his current research at Appledore, looking over the horizon into what comes next in the OSS/BSS world. You could say his forecast is a little "cloud-y" and "edge-y," so strap yourself in for a story that provides a fantastic view of the history of our industry, as well as some brilliant observations and insights into where it will go next.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, Francis can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/francis-haysom/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Vance Shipley is the CEO and Founder of SigScale. SigScale is a provider of standardised, open-source, cloud-native OSS/BSS tools, including flagship product, OCS (Online Charging System).

In this episode, Vance takes us on a fascinating journey through a career that started three decades ago with his first role as a high-tech lumberjack through to his current owner / developer role with SigScale. His journey follows an entrepreneurial pathway, developing clever solutions to the many problems that arose during the early days of deregulation of the telco industry. He also outlines the types of opportunities that are presenting themselves in the modern landscape of 5G and network virtualisation.

Vance also highlights how he has become a Venn diagram, with a unique intersection of skills that include developing solutions that incorporate low-level protocol stacks, specialising in cellular networks (and beyond) and being a key connector to bring network management standards together across 3GPP, TM Forum and LFN.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, Vance can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vances/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

James Crawshaw is a Principal Analyst with Omdia, one of the world's top-three technology analysis agencies. James specialises in analysis of OSS, telecommunications and IT industries, which means he spends more time researching OSS technologies and firms than almost anyone on the planet.

In this episode, James provides insights into what's currently trending in OSS, but he also describes the techniques he uses to peer over the horizon to spot nascent developments.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, James can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescrawshaw/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Michael Jones is a Practice Principal at Analytica Resources, a recruitment role that sees him connecting employers and employees. Analytica is a niche agency that specialises in BSS and OSS placements. This provides Michael with an insider's perspective on the successful techniques that applicants use to find their first, or next, job in the OSS / BSS industry.

Michael describes the processes that he uses to identify best-fit candidates as well as the techniques he recommends for differentiating yourself from others.  He also provides tips on how employers can win in the war on talent, finding ideal candidates, some of which might not even be actively seeking roles.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, Michael can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljones1983/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Peter Dart describes his journey working with some of the world's earliest geospatial software to his current role as Chief Architect with Synchronoss. In this role, he helps to guide the roadmap of Synchronoss' Spatial Suite, a set of tools that assist leading network operators to manage and maintain their Physical Network Inventory (PNI).

In a world where network virtualisation technologies are grabbing the attention of many, Peter articulates why, perhaps more than ever, PNI tools remain relevant. He describes the many use cases where network designers, field workers and capacity planners interact with PNI tools / data, but also delves into some of the less well known opportunities to leverage this information.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, Peter can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-dart-72275611/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Tony Kalcina recounts the story of taking Clarity International from its founding team and customer to IPO (Initial Public Offering) and beyond. He also describes an extensive career starting with Telstra OTC through to his current role as the APAC CTO for Tech Mahindra and Ambassador for TM Forum. Tony provides insights into the formation and leadership of OSS teams and the opportunities that still exist for teams small and large in today's OSS environment.

For any further questions you may have for our guest, Tony can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonykalcina/

Disclaimer. All the views and opinions shared in this podcast, and others in the series, are solely those of our guest and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organisations discussed.

Welcome to the Passionate About OSS podcast, the show for people who are just that – Passionate About OSS – Where the OSS stands for Operational Support Systems. 

In other words, the software solutions that help manage and operate the complex telecommunications networks of today. 

Thanks for joining me on the episode that isn’t quite an episode – it’s more of an introduction message that describes what this show is all about.

I’ve been running the Passionate About OSS brand for a number of years now. But I’ve been passionate about OSS even longer than that, having developed the bug on my first OSS project way back in the year 2000. It’s such a fascinating and diverse subject that I love sharing the passion with others. This show means not just having conversations, but sharing them with you, the audience.

This show shines a light on some of the best and brightest in this industry, and when I say brightest, this means some unbelievably clever, genius-level, OSS experts. Being surrounded by such luminaries can be a humbling experience, especially when you’re less Nostradamus and more NostraDumbAss, like me. As humbling as it might be, even the best of the best don’t come close to knowing everything there is to know about our ever-changing industry.

That’s why we’ll look at it from the multitude of facets that OSS consists of, through the expert eyes who represent personas such as:

· Architects

· Business Analysts

· The C-suite (CEO, CMO, CFO, etc)

· Consultants

· Data Scientists, AI / ML

· Designers

· Developers

· Founders

· Operators

· Project Implementers

· Rainmakers

· Testers

· And so much more

We’ll delve into the pathways they’ve taken in achieving their god-like statuses, but also unlock the tips, tactics, methodologies and strategies they employ. Their successes and failures, challenges and achievements. We’ll look into the past, present and even seek to peer into what the future holds for the telco and OSS industries. The telcos we assist have never been more important to our society, yet they’ve never been more imperiled by market disruption. We’ll seek out ways to add even greater value to network operators and the global customer-base they support.

I expect that our guests’ stories and insights will help you along your own journey, regardless of whether you’re just starting out or have already spent decades wrestling the beast that is OSS.

Like so many of your counterparts, I’m sure you’re inquisitive enough to have loads of additional questions for our guests and I. If so, head over to PassionateAboutOSS.com and leave us a message: 

1) of the questions you have, 

2) your stories and journey and 

3) perhaps even suggestions about the guests you’d like to hear from in future.

We’ll talk soon… but in the meantime, be sure to spread the gospel, the passion that is OSS.