By Werner Gerstacker on 2014/01/06
Description:
Revived a project that had been put on hold for about 9 months. Enabling a mobile network operator to use the SIM card for user authentication on the WLAN hotspot network.
Responsibilities:
- Agreed on project scope and project approach with major stakeholders, i.e. two phases for
- Initial Trial (limited functionality and ‘handpicked’ test users) and
- Full Rollout (for standard subscribers on the live hotspot network).
- Secured resources for the next project phases.
- Ensured budget approval and appropriate usage
- Agree Statement of Work with vendor.
- Drove procurement process with vendor for
- Hardware,
- Software, and
- Professional Services
- in
- Test Environment and
- Live Environment.
- Worked with technical teams across
- access network (design, testing, implementation),
- core functionality (design, development, testing, implementation) and
- agreed handover to several operations teams.
Duration:
Client:
- Telekom Deutschland GmbH, Germany
Posted in Project Management, Technical Projects Tagged Example, Project Management, Technical Projects
By Werner Gerstacker on 2014/01/05
Description:
The role was to be the SPOC (single point of contact) for one of three divisions.
The main purpose of the project was to extend the private address space for mobile data users. Due to the operator’s strategy of assigning private IP addresses to the users’ devices and the fact that the operator did not only have mobile data users, but was providing access via WLAN as well, the IP address space was getting close to its limits.
The resolution for this problem was seen in re-using the addresses (10.x.x.x) several times over by creating several virtual address spaces for internal-only re-use (e.g. 11.x.x.x, 12.x.x.x, 13.x.x.x).
The project itself was run by the core network division, but other divisions – who were system owners of many systems along the traffic path – needed to be involved.
Responsibilities:
- Ensure that all systems along the communication and signalling paths were capable of dealing with re-use of the IP addresses.
- Coordinate the design, development (internal and external), test, and implementation activities and ensure that they took place according to requirements, timelines and budget as provided.
- Coordinate issue resolution across all systems involved, including issues across systems from different vendors and systems owned by multiple divisions.
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH, Germany
Posted in Project Management, Technical Projects Tagged Example, Project Management, Technical Projects
By Werner Gerstacker on 2014/01/04
Description:
The purpose of the project was to enable a new pricing concept that allowed to sell and enforce different maximum download speeds for different mobile subscriptions.
All systems along the call path had to be made compatible with this approach configuration changes had to be made and activated during low-traffic time windows.
This was a follow-up project to Project Manager/Coach AAA/PCRF (User Authentication and Policy Control) which built the technical capability to provide this functionality.
Responsibilities:
- Identified the services that needed to be migrated
- Prioritized the services for which the migration needed to be carried out based on technical and commercial criteria
- Developed a migration concept and aligned it with all stakeholders from the various entities (incl. marketing/product management, design, testing, operations and service management)
- Developed a migration plan that took in consideration the priority of the service as well as resource availability for implementation and live verification testing during as few nightshifts as possible at an acceptable risk level (incl. time for roll-backs in case of any major issues)
- Carried out the migration for all services successfully with only one minor issue which did not require a roll-back and could be fixed during live operation the same day
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH, Germany
Posted in Project Management, Technical Projects Tagged Example, Project Management, Technical Projects
By Werner Gerstacker on 2014/01/03
Description:
The main objectives of this project were focused on two areas:
- Upgrade of the AAA system to enhance capacity as well as to improve redundancy by changing the failover mechanism to a second, geographically separate site
- Implement a new PCF (Policy Control Function) in order to provide the product management teams with required functionality to limit throughput rates for various tariffs dynamically
Responsibilities:
- Coached current project managers in order to improve their skillsets in a number of areas (e.g. risk, dependency and vendor management, communication across multiple project teams, testing and quality management approaches)
- Drove the approach to split the project in two pieces (AAA Upgrade and PCRF Implementation) in order to decrease complexity and reduce risk as well as to release pressure on the day-to-day operation
- Updated plans and re-negotiate delivery schedules with the major stakeholders
- Implemented contingency measures to ensure project progress
- Negotiated milestone dates and scope with dependent system delivery and product/service projects
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International, Germany
Posted in Project Management, Technical Projects Tagged Example, Project Management, Technical Projects
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/18
Description:
- Applied the Traffic Modeling Toolset to reduce the of number of MSC/BSC sites
Responsibilities:
- Used the WFI Traffic Modeling Toolset to help optimize the transmission network for the Western Region (CA, NV) which originally had:
- 45 locations
- 60+ MSCs
- 120+ BSCs
- Important factors to be considered were:
- current traffic distribution
- future traffic distribution (via a developed gravity model)
- customers moving on & off the network (an MVNO was moving onto another infrastructure)
- voice and IP (GPRS, EDGE, WLAN) traffic, how it was routed and interconnected
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile – Western Region of the US
Posted in Project Management, Technical Projects Tagged Example, Network Models, Project Management, Technical Projects
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/18
Description:
- Evaluated resource, budget, and timeline requirements to implement a new service
Responsibilities:
- Gathered high-level and key requirements for a new service in order to define a long list of potential vendors
- Managed internal process to produce RfI for vendors on the long list
- Provided the interface to vendors participating in the RfI (single point of contact for enquiries, clarification, updates on timeline, etc.)
- Drove internal evaluation to produce a shortlist
- Managed workshops with shortlisted vendors in order to prepare for RfQ
- Facilitated Steering Board decision process for next steps
- Wound down project and released resources
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International – Germany
Posted in Project Management Tagged Example, Project Management
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/16
Description:
- Evaluated resource, budget, and timeline requirements to implement an upgrade of an existing service
Responsibilities:
- Discussed the feature roadmap with the existing vendor
- Drove evaluation of roadmap features within the organisation
- Extracted key requirements for system/service upgrade from major stakeholders
- Performed gap-analysis between vendor roadmap and marketing requirements
- Provided resource and budget estimates together with a high-level timeline
- Facilitated Steering Board decision process for next steps
- Wound down project and released resources
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International – Germany
Posted in Project Management Tagged Example, Project Management
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/16
Description:
- Evaluated a solution to scan mobile messages for virus infection
Responsibilities:
- Gathered requirements from marketing department (product owner)
- Translated requirements into an RfI document
- Managed evaluation of responses to RfI within the technical teams
- Managed process to shortlist vendors
- Managed workshops with shortlisted vendors
- Prepared project for ‘Go / No Go’ gate
- Wound project down and released resources
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International – UK
Posted in Project Management Tagged Example, Project Management
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/16
Description:
- Evaluated the release and feature upgrade of an existing service
Responsibilities:
- Gathered requirements from marketing departments (product owner)
- Translated requirements into an RfI document
- Managed evaluation of responses to RfI within the technical teams
- Managed process to shortlist vendors
- Managed workshops with shortlisted vendors
- Prepared project for ‘Go / No Go’ gate
- Wound project down and released resources
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International – UK
Posted in Project Management Tagged Example, MIG, Project Management
By Werner Gerstacker on 2011/04/16
Description:
- Managed the outsourced development of a J2ME client
Responsibilities:
- Gathered requirements from product owners
- Aligned requirements with all stakeholders (international division, T-Mobile Germany, T-Mobile UK, T-Mobile Czech Republic, T-Mobile Slovakia)
- Ensured that all ‘must have’ requirements could be fulfilled with one single client
- Managed offshore vendor
- Evaluated and gained agreement to development focus (which handset models from which vendors based on which OS and platform)
- Managed optimized rollout path (i.e. in which sequence to have the 30+ clients delivered so that costs could be kept to a minimum)
Duration:
Client:
- T-Mobile International – Germany, UK, Czech Republic, Slovakia
Posted in Project Management Tagged Example, Handset Client, IM, Project Management