Frontloading: Virtual Quality Assurance for Improved Service Launch Processes

Swift and frictionless launches of new products are a decisive capability of future telecommunication providers, especially in an all-IP production environment. These processes are characterized by nonlinear, network-like dependencies of multiple stakeholders (e.g. marketing, product management, IT, production, multi-project management, controlling and others) and critical technical resources such as IT systems, production platforms, customer relationship management systems and technical elements. As these nonlinearities cannot be governed by simple guesses, a systematic a priori quality assurance of launch processes must necessarily involve comprehensive model-based simulations. However, a fine-grained deterministic model of the technical landscape of a telecommunication provider must fail due to complexity and changeability with time. The presented paper proposes – utilizing aspect-oriented modelling and arbitrary hierarchical scales – a slim methodology and concurrent software tool for such a quality assurance..