Last month our family went to the theater to see a rather odd show called The Storyville Mosquito.
No, I haven’t suddenly become a theater critic – this newsletter is still about telecoms – but I wanted to share our experiences, because we can all learn something from this peculiar, whimsical, and utterly delightful show.
From the moment the curtains lifted, revealing tiny, intricately crafted sets and an army of puppeteers, musicians, and camera operators, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be your typical night at the theater.
The story itself – about a little mosquito chasing his big-city dreams – was charming. But for me, the real star of the show was the sheer teamwork on display. There were around 15 people rushing around the miniature sets on stage, puppeteering, filming, playing and mixing music, all while projecting the “finished product” – a movie – onto the big screen for the audience.
It’s hard to explain – maybe check out this trailer from YouTube to get a better idea.
The choreography among the team was impressive, but very complicated – and at times I have felt like I was struggling with the same thing with our team at Award Consulting.
When we first started the business it was just me and a couple of clients – it was all about helping the clients with their needs and there really wasn’t any complexity beyond the technical work itself.
Fast forward to today, and we have a team of 11 people, serving around 80 clients – and each person on the team has their own set of special skills. Some have unique roles (like Renee Cagle, our new project manager), whereas others might be technical specialists in a particular area – switch translations, IP networking, or migration projects, for example.
You see, just like the folks pulling the strings (literally) in The Storyville Mosquito, we are doing our very best to dance in perfect harmony so that we can serve all our clients with excellence, and provide personalized service with the right skillset whenever any of you has a need. Behind the scenes, this can feel every bit as delicate as ensuring a spider can play the drums convincingly on a tiny stage. (Spiders have 8 arms (legs, whatever) … so they are quite formidable drummers, at least in the show.)
Everyone on the Surfboard
Kid Koala, the mastermind behind The Storyville Mosquito, once described his show as “15 people on a surfboard,” all trying to move in perfect harmony without falling off. I don’t think telecoms projects are quite that fragile, but this need for team work is part of the reason we decided to add a specialist Project Manager to our team.
Some of our clients simply use the team as an escalation point – an easily-accessible expert resource when you need some extra help to troubleshoot a problem or make a change in the network.
However, many service providers approach us because they have a big project, and they want to make sure it goes smoothly. Typically this is some kind of network migration – from a DMS100 to a Metaswitch, or from a hardware-based Metaswitch to virtual machines, or a migration to a cloud-based voice platform. Or maybe a consolidation of multiple switches into one.
These kinds of projects can be quite complex – often with multiple vendors working together, with tasks assigned to the service provider, the vendors, and to the team at Award – and that’s where a specialist project manager can really help us all to succeed.
The best project managers (and yes, I’m including Renee on that list!) combine domain expertise with great organizational and planning skills, plus amazing communication – and the end result is a project that progresses more smoothly and more quickly, which is a win for everyone involved.
At the theater, there was no visible conductor orchestrating the cast members. Possibly they all know their parts so well that no coordination was needed – which is one of the benefits of performing exactly the same show every night – but my guess is that there was someone backstage talking into a microphone, making sure that every move took place at just the right time. And that’s how you allow each team member to excel at their individual tasks, in a way that combines perfectly with all the other players to create a performance that’s much more than the sum of the parts.
How are your projects going?
If you have an upcoming project in your voice network, we’ll be very happy to help you succeed – not only by providing expert technical resources, but also by providing the coordination of a skilled project manager.
Or if you have a project that has stalled – this might be a great opportunity to inject some new energy and coordination into the team.
Either way, please drop us a line, and we’ll be happy to talk about your situation, and see if we can help you out.
