Project Management for a Telecom Billing Application Development

Customer

The Customer is a national GSM-operator with more than 5 mln subscribers, and a member of Europe’s leading telecommunication holding.

Challenge

The company decided to upgrade their billing solution and thus streamline the self-service system and numerous customer service processes. The Customer chose one of the European telecom vendors to implement the new system. Despite the plan to finish up the project in 2 years, the development stretched over more than 4 years. It came out that there had been little consistency in coordination of processes between the Customer, the vendor and the third-party sources. Therefore, ScienceSoft stepped in to assist the Customer in the key challenge on the spot – project management of the development occurring on multiple sides.

Solution

ScienceSoft assigned an experienced specialist to work within the Customer’s IT department on a full-time basis. Following a 2 weeks’ catch-up with the workflow, the PM was able to foresee potential problems in the development process, so that the Customer could take corrective measures.

ScienceSoft introduced a distinct system of release planning and managed to reduce the testing cycle time from 4-6 to just 2 weeks.

Based on the statistics and close cooperation with all the parties involved, the PM was continuously assessing the vendors’ commitments to timely deliver the upcoming releases. Thanks to this information, the Customer could plan the development to avoid fines caused by delays on their side.

During the steering committee monthly meetings, ScienceSoft PM presented reports on progress and planning, which allowed both Customer’s and vendors’ managers to agree on the terms of subsequent deliveries.

Results

The PM’s expertise in managing telecom billing systems development projects helped the Customer to increase the transparency of the ongoing development process and to plan and coordinate further collaboration with the vendors. The billing system was successfully introduced and let the Customer push forward new tariff plans and services to the market.