Life Cycle and Portfolio
Management

Report of LCPM-meeting in Copenhagen on 17 March 2005, memo by Walter van Dijk and Pekka Linna

A. Participants

The meeting was attended by 23 people from many European NRENs as listed below. The participants were:

Zoran Birimisa CARNet
Virginie Blanquart RENATER
Carol de Groot
 TERENA
Tomi Dolenc ARNES
Urs Eppenberger SWITCH
Gerti Foest DFN
Frode Greisen UNI-C
Zbyszek Krzewinski PIONIER
Gitte Kudsk UNI-C
Pekka Linna CSC/Funet
Russell Nelson UKERNA
Sandra Passchier SURFnet
Alberto Perez Red.es
Maria Ristkok EENet
Dale Robertson DANTE
Elise Roders SURFnet
Koen Schelkens BELNET
David Simonsen UNI-C
Patricia Soria HEAnet
Helga Spitaler DANTE
Magnus Strømdal UNINETT
Federica Tanlongo GARR
Walter van Dijk SURFnet

B. Agenda and introduction to the topic

The meeting was structured by an agenda that was sent out in advance of the meeting: http://www.terena.nl/news/lcpm/copenhagen-agenda.html

Walter van Dijk and Pekka Linna introduced the participants to the topic by talking about the ratio for NREN involvement in lifecycle- and portfolio management (LCPM).

C. Common ground for future co-operation

The discussion started with a quest for common ground for cooperation. All attendees agreed that the exchange of ideas and best practices regarding the introduction of new services and marketing of existing services would be most useful. In addition a comparison of existing service portfolios might easily lead to synergy.

D. Topics of interest

Exchange of  best practice was seen to be potentially useful in many areas:

  • new service development and the management therof
  • product launch and marketing
  • portfolio communication and discontinuing services in the portfolio
  • business models for core services / additional services
  • service definitions and service level agreements

Another possible level of interaction would come from service production
  • copying each others services (e.g. anti-spam tools)
  • co-buying of services (e.g. Usenet News)
  • possibly even co-management (e.g. Listserv) of services

Another point of interest is to bring a product management persepective into the TERENA co-operation on new service development. This would mean e.g. making a sharper difference between the testing of new technologies (fit for many purposes) and development of new services (possible to produce with the help of various different technologies). This makes it possible to announce the new service under development and find the relevant partners.

E. NRENs and their product portfolios (a discussion)

It was observed that the lack of customer involvement in developing services has resulted in a potential mismatch in some NRENs, when customer requirements are compared with existing service portfolios. This logically follows from the technology-driven innovation projects in which most new services have been developed. In order to generate more balance and hence more customer satisfaction, demand-pull inputs (user requirements) are needed.

Innovation programmes are essential for NRENs and hence the focus on service development should not be solely centered around user requirements. In fact a 'best of both worlds' approach is needed and therefore the exchange of models and procedures that combine both customer instigated inputs and technology development inputs might prove most fruitful. An example of a theoretical model can be found in the slides of the meeting: http://www.terena.nl/news/lcpm/

Another point heavily stressed was that NRENs are and have to be different from commercial ISPs. The formulas for portfolio management should therefore not be picked from private sector in a non-critical manner. One of the special features of NRENs is flexibility in product portfolios.

F. Challenges for future interaction

The discussion on business models showed that most NRENs use tariff-models that primarily charge for connectivity while others (e.g. EENet) charge solely for added value services and some (e.g. Ukerna and RED.ES) do not charge their customers at all. Thus the perspectives on services / products might differ quite much from NREN to NREN.

There was also a discussion on the definition of customers. Should customers be defined as IT-directors or end-users or both. Most attendees agreed that this is no binary issue and hence that both categories are relevant from a customer satisfaction perspective. The ambiguity of the concept poses a challenge for future interaction, however.

The various services of the NRENs seem to fall into different categories (e.g. IP-connectivity as the core, news and e-mail services as additional services), and thus there is a need to specify the type of products being tackled to make the discussion fluent and fruitful. The different types, however, have names that differ between the NRENs.

All this raised the need to create a common language and a conceptual framework with which to address the key questions: customers and other stake-holders, service types, business models.

G. Items for future discussions

Items for future discussion are:
  • comparison of service portfolios
  • comparison of business models used
  • comparison of service level agreements
  • best practices for customer service
  • best practices for facilitating the maintenance of campus networks

H. Ways of organising the interaction in the future

Regarding the question whether this initiative should evolve into a TERENA Taskforce it was remarked that a TF will most probably lead to more focus in terms of deliverables, deadlines etc. than a more loosely organized workgroup that could regularly convene during TNC- or Nordunet conferences.

Participants stressed that the issues involved are quite different from the issues that are discussed within TF-PR. The people involved might in some cases be the same but in many NRENs responsibility for PR and LCPM lies with different people. People involved in LCPM are usually not directly involved in corporate communications but primarily in marketing of service portfolios and hence could be described as "business managers".

The initiators of this first meeting have arranged for a second meeting (BoF) at TNC2005 (Sunday 5 June, 9.00 - 12.00 hrs) where the focus will lie on a comparison of service portfolios. A third meeting is scheduled for Q3 2005 when a workshop will be organized in Amsterdam. This third meeting will not be co-located with other meetings and the number of participants is therefore expected to serve as an effective indication of the common ground for cooperation.

I. Representatives or contact people from the NRENs

As a concluding agenda-item each participant was asked to indicate who would be the most appropriate person to represent their NREN in this initiative. This resulted in the following list:

Name NREN Remarks




Zoran Birimisa CARNet Person would depend on agenda
Tomi Dolenc ARNES
Urs Eppenberger SWITCH
Gerti Foest DFN
Sabine Jaume RENATER
Zbyszek Krzewinski PIONIER
Pekka Linna CSC/Funet
Russell Nelson UKERNA
Alberto Perez RED.ES Person would depend on agenda
Maria Ristkok EENet Person would depend on agenda
Dale Robertson DANTE
Koen Schelkens BELNET
David Simonsen UNI-C
Ann Harding HEAnet
Magnus Strømdal UNINETT
Federica Tanlongo GARR Not sure if GARR is interested
Walter van Dijk SURFnet

J. List of actions agreed upon

  1. The initiators issue and distribute this meeting report.
  2. TERENA adds the announced contact people to the e-mail distribution list (lcpm@terena.nl) that already previously has been created for exchange of information, discuss common issues, ask/receive questions/advice. It is possible for interested NREN representatives to subscribe to the list by sending an email to majordomo@terena.nl, with “subscribe lcpm” in the body of the mail (nothing in the subject line).
  3. TERENA provides a dedicated area on the TERENA web site. This web site has (temporarily) been created at http://www.terena.nl/news/lcpm/
  4. The initiators prepare a list of topics which should be handled inside the LCPM group. It might take the form of a draft charter for the group. This will be distributed on the list before the BoF session at TNC2005.
  5. The initiators organise a BoF session at TNC2005, Sunday June 5, 9-12 am. On the agenda is the draft charter. The goal is to prioritise the list of topics to have a limited set to work on initially. The charter for the group should be agreed upon amongth the participants.
  6. The initiators prepare for a workshop in Q3 2005 in Amsterdam. This session will function as a go/no-go for a potential TERENA-TF.
  7. Each delegate consults internally who should represent their NREN in this initiative.
  8. The initiators try to get the NRENs involved that were not able to attend the Copenhagen meeting.
  9. SWITCH underwent a peer review in March 05. The self evaluation document which has been prepared for this review describes the organisation,  the strategy and the services of SWITCH. Urs Eppenberger will distribute the document on the lcpm list as soon as is it available for the public.