Telecommunications Provider’s Architecture Tooling: Establishment and Management

Telecommunications
Context

As a trusted long-term partner of a prominent telecommunications provider, Mosaic Island was selected to be the provider of their enterprise model repository. This repository, based on Sparx EA, serves as a vital deployment supporting solution design, service design, and data architecture across both Business as Usual (BAU) operations and their ambitious digital transformation program.

Mosaic Island has maintained a longstanding relationship with this partner, offering consulting services that establish critical architectural best practices in design templates and processes. Additionally, we have provided strategic guidance on key areas such as business intelligence and omni-channel strategy. Furthermore, we have delivered architecture managed services, allowing the team’s composition to flex and adapt to changing demands while ensuring quality management, service excellence, and comprehensive reporting.

Recognising the need to bolster their core permanent enterprise architecture team, particularly in the realm of data, our partner turned to Mosaic Island for support. They requested specialist resources in the data domain while they undertook the recruitment of a new permanent member. Mosaic Island promptly deployed a data architect from our consulting group to provide the necessary expertise and support during this transitional period.

Objective

The decision to adopt architecture tooling was driven by several key factors, including the need for a centralised source of truth for IT assets, enhancing staff productivity, expediting project delivery, and elevating the quality of end-to-end design work to minimise go-live issues.

Mosaic Island (MI) seamlessly deployed Sparx EA via our Sparx as a Service SaaS platform to address these needs. We executed a variety of Model-Based Design use cases within IT teams, seamlessly integrating them into their Customer-Centered Design methodology. These use cases encompassed E2E solution design, service design, data architecture, and enterprise architecture (including the migration from Planview Troux) using the Prolaborate platform.

In addition to our architectural contributions, our enterprise data architect played a pivotal role in ensuring the continuity of daily operations while also conducting a comprehensive maturity assessment of data capabilities within a substantial transformational change program.

Action

The deployment initially started with 80 users and has since expanded to encompass over 200 users, all seamlessly supported by Mosaic Island’s proficient model manager. Furthermore, MI went the extra mile by extending the original solution to include robust GDPR/IAR data classification capabilities. This comprehensive solution also incorporates Prolaborate and Pro Cloud Server, seamlessly integrated with JIRA and Confluence for enhanced efficiency.

At Mosaic Island, our approach went beyond mere tool implementation; we prioritised integration into the team’s daily operations. This involved onboarding the entire existing dataset into the tool and establishing a vital connection between the delivery process and the tooling teams. This ensures that data is consistently updated and maintained as part of day-to-day operations.

In addition to our ongoing data architecture functions, our enterprise architect conducted a thorough review of data architecture governance and operations within the primary transformation change program. This in-depth analysis led to several key recommendations, particularly regarding governance structures and data management practices.

Outcome

The seamless adoption of a centralised architecture tooling capability stands as a resounding success story, demonstrating its ability to scale effectively and establish best practice standards within a complex technology landscape. With the capacity for concurrent designers working on multiple projects and reusing design patterns, this tool has revolutionised the way architecture knowledge is captured and documented, especially in the context of large-scale change programs.

This transformational journey extended to a comprehensive data architecture review, forming the foundation for a novel data governance and management approach tailored to the program’s unique needs. The review pinpointed critical design gaps and thoughtfully prioritised them, with one pressing concern being the documentation of a new taxonomy for in-scope systems and the intricate data flows between them. These newfound requirements gave rise to a dedicated project aimed at closing these gaps, and Mosaic Island (MI) was entrusted to provide the necessary resources.

With MI’s expertise and commitment, the project was executed with remarkable success, meeting all milestones on time and within the allocated budget. This achievement underscored the value of a strategic partnership with MI, facilitating seamless progress and tangible results.

Annual Revenue or Income
£10.3bn
Number of employees
18700
Operational Geographies
UK
Year
2009-Ongoing
Length of Engagement
14 years
Key Stakeholder
Chief Information Officer
Business Functional Areas
  • Business Process Management
  • Business Support Services
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Data & Analytics Management
  • Enterprise Resource Planning
  • Lead & Sales Management
  • Marketing & Personalisation
  • Network Installation Management
  • Network Operations Management
  • Network Planning & Build Management
  • Sales
  • Strategy Development & Execution
  • Supply Chain Management
Number of MI People
AMS: 45
Consulting Team: 3