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Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a solid treatment of this vital area!
Review: Finally, a thorough treatment of this critical area! Ward does an excellent job of describing what makes product/service development so unique in telecommunications. I also believe the book does a very good job of explaining how to **improve** processes so the organization is optimized for service creation. If you truly understand (or need to understand) the challenges and sometimes, the pain, in getting telecom services deployed to rate-payers and subscribers, you will appreciate this book. As one who has lived through aspects of this, I enjoyed the reading it. In fact, recommended it to one manager who had his whole team read it! This book is foundational for anyone who desires to understand the right way to develop product and services in telecom/network centric companies.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a solid treatment of this vital area!
Review: Finally, a thorough treatment of this critical area! Ward does an excellent job of describing what makes product/service development so unique in telecommunications. I also believe the book does a very good job of explaining how to **improve** processes so the organization is optimized for service creation. If you truly understand (or need to understand) the challenges and sometimes, the pain, in getting telecom services deployed to rate-payers and subscribers, you will appreciate this book. As one who has lived through aspects of this, I enjoyed the reading it. In fact, recommended it to one manager who had his whole team read it! This book is foundational for anyone who desires to understand the right way to develop product and services in telecom/network centric companies.
Rating:
Summary: Review from the Author (eward@wardassociates.net)
Review: There are plenty of books on new product development, but very few on service development. Fewer still -- in fact non-existent until now -- are books on telecommunications service development. This book was written to fill that void and to provide a much needed methodology for those involved in bringing new communication-based services to market. "World-Class Telecommunications Service Development" begins by examining why traditional product development methodologies -- methodologies which have gained acceptance in the discrete manufacturing world -- don't apply to an industry where the product is not a tangible commodity but rather an 'always-on' service. Here, the product being developed and delivered is primarily a set of business processes. Indeed, this role of 'process' is so central to what's involved in developing products for this industry that it serves as the book's main message and theme ("in telecom, the process is the product"). If we accept the role of processes in the development of new services, then we need to understand what's involved in actually creating these systems-based, inter-departmental delivery processes. Re-working a manufacturing model won't do the job. What's needed are logical product and process models designed specifically for this environment in this time. In this book, you'll discover some proven (albeit high-level) approaches for logically modeling new services. You'll also learn techniques for managing the complex and highly cross-disciplinary process known as product development across the entire enterprise. Weaving together hands-on, structured models and methods with valuable management techniques and insights, this book offers a blend of information needed for any person -- whether at the executive, engineering, marketing or product management level -- involved in bringing new products to market. The book is organized into 7 sections: Part I looks at today's telecommunications services industry and at some of the characteristics that make this industry unique. Part II offers a product development framework consisting of three separate but related perspectives. The first two of these perspectives involve the product -- the network service and the service delivery process. The third perspective -- the product development process -- is the process by which a company brings these two parts together in the creation of a new product. Part III looks at how providers decide what products to build. In this section, issues involved in evaluating, defining, structuring and packaging the product are considered. Part IV examines the processes of service delivery. Here, the individual processes that make up the end-to-end service delivery view are identified and reviewed, with a discussion on what's involved in linking these processes together. Part V considers what's at stake in developing systems-based business processes. This section explores some of the issues providers face in integrating and automating their service delivery systems and processes. Part VI examines what is required within the organization to launch and support the product. This section looks at the last three phases of the development cycle: development, implementation and launch. (The three preceding phases, opportunity analysis, feasibility and definition, are covered in earlier sections). Part VII concludes with a discussion on organizational issues, and on ways organizations can make their development efforts more effective. This section includes chapters on effective team building and rapid development approaches. It ends with some thoughts on what it means to be a world-class service provider. eward@wardassociates.net
Rating:
Summary: Review from the Author (eward@wardassociates.net)
Review: There are plenty of books on new product development, but very few on service development. Fewer still -- in fact non-existent until now -- are books on telecommunications service development. This book was written to fill that void and to provide a much needed methodology for those involved in bringing new communication-based services to market. "World-Class Telecommunications Service Development" begins by examining why traditional product development methodologies -- methodologies which have gained acceptance in the discrete manufacturing world -- don't apply to an industry where the product is not a tangible commodity but rather an 'always-on' service. Here, the product being developed and delivered is primarily a set of business processes. Indeed, this role of 'process' is so central to what's involved in developing products for this industry that it serves as the book's main message and theme ("in telecom, the process is the product"). If we accept the role of processes in the development of new services, then we need to understand what's involved in actually creating these systems-based, inter-departmental delivery processes. Re-working a manufacturing model won't do the job. What's needed are logical product and process models designed specifically for this environment in this time. In this book, you'll discover some proven (albeit high-level) approaches for logically modeling new services. You'll also learn techniques for managing the complex and highly cross-disciplinary process known as product development across the entire enterprise. Weaving together hands-on, structured models and methods with valuable management techniques and insights, this book offers a blend of information needed for any person -- whether at the executive, engineering, marketing or product management level -- involved in bringing new products to market. The book is organized into 7 sections: Part I looks at today's telecommunications services industry and at some of the characteristics that make this industry unique. Part II offers a product development framework consisting of three separate but related perspectives. The first two of these perspectives involve the product -- the network service and the service delivery process. The third perspective -- the product development process -- is the process by which a company brings these two parts together in the creation of a new product. Part III looks at how providers decide what products to build. In this section, issues involved in evaluating, defining, structuring and packaging the product are considered. Part IV examines the processes of service delivery. Here, the individual processes that make up the end-to-end service delivery view are identified and reviewed, with a discussion on what's involved in linking these processes together. Part V considers what's at stake in developing systems-based business processes. This section explores some of the issues providers face in integrating and automating their service delivery systems and processes. Part VI examines what is required within the organization to launch and support the product. This section looks at the last three phases of the development cycle: development, implementation and launch. (The three preceding phases, opportunity analysis, feasibility and definition, are covered in earlier sections). Part VII concludes with a discussion on organizational issues, and on ways organizations can make their development efforts more effective. This section includes chapters on effective team building and rapid development approaches. It ends with some thoughts on what it means to be a world-class service provider. eward@wardassociates.net
Rating:
Summary: A must read for Telecommunications professionals.
Review: Until now there's been almost nothing on this subject. The author has done an outstanding job of bringing together diverse information and adding her own experiences. She's made a valuable contribution to an area rarely written about - telecommunications service development. Ms. Ward's Framework for Telecommunications Service Development provides an invaluable tool to the way successful organiztions should take an idea and carry it through the entire life cycle.
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