The Benefits of Using TM Forum Frameworx

Back in China this week, looking forward to expanding on the variety of Chinese delights that I have come to enjoy.

Over the last several months many of the blogs I have posted talk about how the various parts of Frameworx (SID, eTOM, TAM, and Integration Framework) can be used.  Speaking of variety, the blogs included a variety of benefits that can be gained by using the frameworks, but really didn’t provide any quantitative benefits.  Many of the case studies published on the TM Forum web site do contain quantifiable benefits but are not always specific to the quantifiable benefit gained at a project level.  So, I would like to share how to quantify some benefits and ask you to provide any others that you have realized by employing the frameworks.

First let’s take a look at one of my favorite topics – not having to start from scratch.  This one is easy to quantify.  Just determine the amount of time and money that it would take to develop the equivalent of what part of one or more frameworks could be used.  For example, one that I have encountered many, many times around the world, suppose you are a provider/operator looking to introduce a new technology and the offerings enabled by it; often the part of the provider / operator’s process model that deals with the introduction of new technology and offerings has been specialized for current technologies, is out of date, or does not exist; if this is the case the Infrastructure Lifecycle Management,  Product Lifecycle Management, and part of Operations Support  & Readiness vertical process groupings of the eTOM can be used as a starting point for developing a process model, or checklist, that defines the tasks to be carried out.  It should be quite easy to estimate how much time it would take to develop the equivalent of these processes from scratch.  The estimate should also factor in the subject matter expertise built into the eTOM that reduces the possibility of false starts or errors if the eTOM is not used.

Next, let’s return to another of my favorite topics – terminology.  Let’s look at the SID in this case, specifically SID-based interfaces, which was a topic of one of my recent blogs.  I, for one, know that trying to find definitions of attributes in proprietary interfaces often feels like trying to follow a treasure map.  It often takes hours to find just one.  In large integration projects, how many of these attribute definitions out of hundreds or thousands, fit this profile?  I didn’t leave entity definitions out on purpose, but they can also be a challenge.  Again, it is not difficult to estimate the savings.  I have worked on integration projects where entire teams were assembled just to do interface mappings.  With SID-based interfaces the cost associated with this goes down significantly.

Another – preparing RFx’s.  Some members are already developing TM Frameworx-based RFX’s, because they realize there is no need to re-develop functional (eTOM and TAM), Information (SID), or Interface (Integration Framework) requirements.  Rather, they focus on the requirements that are specific to their business and reference the frameworks that define the scope of their requirements.  How much time does this save?  Quite a bit, as I just finished developing an RFP based on the frameworks and saved months of team effort.  Look for more on this in my next blog; a number of us are developing a RFx template based on the frameworks.

One a last one for now – guidelines.  While this may be a one-time cost savings, it should not be ignored.  Most of the frameworks have guidelines that can be used for developing areas of a framework that are yet to be developed or for extending a framework.  How much time would it take to develop the equivalent?

Hopefully, I’ve made my point.  There are certainly more and that’s where I look to you to provide a helping hand!

I’ll be back in the US (hopefully!) doing some training the week after next, so look for another blog from there...