Design thinking updates & looking for Beta candidates - Network Management for Netcool Operations Insight

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The IBM Design Thinking initiative has taken the IBM Netcool team, who are focused on Network Management, on an interesting journey, and I think that it is time to update readers on our progress and some of what we have learned. The last blog on this topic concerned the importance of client empathy for product management and developers; essentially placing the User eXperience (UX) at the centre of the design process. This blog is available here.

Here is what our hardworking designer Rob Clark has to say about Design Thinking:

"Design Thinking principles are equally valuable when applied to existing capabilities as they are for the design of new solutions.  Applied to existing capabilities, these principles have led to a major shift in how we think the code is used.  It is not enough for all the steps to be in place for a user to complete a given task from start to finish.  Design Thinking prompts us to ask and think about how the user feels while traversing those steps, which leads to different answers.  Customers are not shy in expressing their feelings, given the opportunity, and this is like a light being shone on the key areas where change can transform a product, allowing users to increase their productivity and devote brain cycles to the problem at hand rather than the product itself."

Naturally, having a good understanding of the clients’ current experiences with our solution is only the first step. The real work starts with the transformation of that client User eXperience. This is what is called  the “to-be” experience. To achieve this transformed experience, we have been privileged to work with some terrific sponsor users, who are essential to a successful Design Thinking project. These sponsor users have given of their time and knowledge in order to ensure our journey is a productive one.   

Here is a summary of the “to-be” goals ear-marked for the Netcool Operations Insight – Network Management deliverables:

Network Health Overview Dashboard

• See the previous blog dedicated to the Network Health Overview Dashboard details here.
• Contextual drill-down to events without losing the dashboard's original focus.
• Contextual drill-down to network topology map without losing the dashboard's original focus.
• Toggle table or individual graph without losing original focus.

Some Sponsor User feedback is as follows:

"Looks promising -all this information available in one place" – IT department, North American Insurance Company.
“The dashboard plus GUI performance will help them sell the NOC operators” - North American bank - IT operations.

Java and applet removal for network topology visualisation

• Client environment is predictable and stable with no plugins to worry about.
• Click on network views and the view begins rendering immediately.

Network Management deployment

• Simplified control over deployment process.
• Fast, with confidence, time to value for multiple products across multiple servers. Install from single repository using a rich GUI.
• IBM Install Manager will take care of the install order and prerequisite checking.

Beta program

Network Management development will conduct a “Netcool Operations Insight – Network Management” beta program commencing in September, 2015. Expressions of interest for this beta should be sent to randles@ie.ibm.com

Beta focus will be on IBM Tivoli Network Manager 4.2 and IBM Tivoli Netcool Configuration Manager 6.4.2 in the context of Netcool Operations Insight integration.

Tom Randles
Product Manager
IT Service Management - Netcool Network Management
http://www.twitter.com/RandlesTom