Implementing Enterprise Architecture methods into a telecommunications company. Outlines the constraints, options, and problems with today's telecommunications company and how to use EA to break down silos and make an organization uniform in managing the EA structure.

1. Implementing an Enterprise Architecture
Exploring Telecommunications
Kevin Kempton
University of Denver – University College
October 16, 2016
Dr. Steven Else, Ph.D.

2. Background
In the world of telecommunications and information technology, constant change is always a
topic of discussion. The improvements in technology are sought out and implementations are
developed to help generate revenue for an organization. Enough to be sought after by companies in
other companies, which end in mergers and acquisitions of companies in other industries. In the case of
Nelnet, Inc, and Allo Communications, the larger company acquired the smaller telecom company with a
win-win strategy in mind to help grow the business and help establish standards in the way the company
deals with its infrastructure. Ultimately, the data governance packages are well developed and a need
to improve upon the process of taking down information is structured, follows process management
methods that involve peer reviews and maintenance opportunities to improve upon systems
performance. The area that is at most risk, however, is related to supporting end customers receiving
services provided in TV, Internet, domain name registration and business level services support, and of
course phone services. The unique thing about the company, however, is that it is completely consisting
of a fiber backbone and can provide speeds at levels higher than most larger ISPs can offer. There needs
to be a system in place to provide support to knowledge based workers in an effort to build the
knowledgebase to be accurate and produce value to the company and not just be a cost to the
corporate infrastructure model.
The diagram below identifies the current process and how data is governed as of today. The
procedures Allo communications has brought to the table are 70% in people’s heads with limited
documentation of the decision-tree and what constitutes standard operations for documenting
processes for others to share for more unified support. This can be streamlined to communicate
support methods after certain maintenance operations occur.

3. Situation: Overview of Current Processes
The current processes define the organizations foundation for execution as being weak when it
comes to company-wide support of products in use and upholding terms and conditions provided at sale
of services provided by Allo. In terms of setting up a solid enterprise architecture, the existing model
needs to build upon developing a more structured model in determining the data models currently
being used by individuals on the support staff. To use the TOGAF model, managing the requirements
that support staff must meet is defined by the need of the customers and what they believe to be
sufficient support services to better serve their needs. The escalation process is defined here and
provides an idea of how support issues are documented and passed from tier level support and what
keywords are used to provide support solutions by means of knowledge priority and business value
monitoring with peer review. Before peer reviews can be implemented, this process must be defined
with key parties and alternates that understand the system of support and what has already been
achieved by the time it reaches each tier of support. Ultimately, the more knowledgeable the team, the
better the support and the faster the response time. The knowledgebase is key on what is needed to be
able to quickly search for answers to common issues. See figure below for better description of data
flows. (See Figure 1 below).

4. Figure 1. Existing architecture of technical support for customer problem resolution (access:
With an understanding to how knowledge is produced within the support staff, there are different tasks
that must be escalated, which isn’t always rightly known or identified as something that can be done by
that tier of support. As you can see from the diagram, the option to build a dataset that can be
centralized and utilized by all support staff is the first key in providing even support throughout the
company and technical support process. A more streamlined approach in providing a process to ensure
data integrity while still providing real-time knowledge production, a new diagram must be drawn in
order to follow the new unified structure of the parent company. The company needs to be able to
offer one knowledgebase that can be used by all parties, only having unified permissions across each
role.

5. There also needs to be a moderator or review process that ensures the knowledge collected is
at the quality standards setup by a governing group, which currently is only consulted on an as needed
basis. Each support tier is providing customized support to every customer support ticket, but this has
successfully produced documents for support across all three tiers of support. This has proven
problematic when adding new designs, documents, or configurations within the knowledge base, as it
has to be updated in many places and there is no authoritative source. For example, if the network
engineers made a major change to the network and not all players have updated their content yet, or
even necessarily know who is supposed to update this content, then they are stuck contacting the
person that completed the task. This can become problematic when the company grows to three times
the customers and that person doesn’t even remember doing it. A content manager and system
administrators are needed in making this model successful and integrating a uniform method for
creating knowledge within the technical support process.
Proposal for Action
Given the preceding factors in developing a case to make any big changes to the technical
support system, actions need to be taken in order to make the system a more streamlined approach.
One that provides a solid course of action to adopt and inherent the data collection processes in place
for first level support systems that are derived from upper level engineering diagrams and information
developed in accordance with top-level management and IT governance guidelines that keeps the
company information secured and not replicated without authorized consent. The EA diagram that
identifies the newly improved process to centralize the information and secures knowledge based on
least privilege methodologies and peer reviews of released support documents.

6. Figure 2. Proposal for improvement - EA implementation
The end result, as you can see, is a database of support documentation that is available and linked to
the maintenance schedule, as well as updating the network management system and transport systems,
succinctly. This approach will maintain IT governance methods in place and supply the support team
with appropriate information for whatever problem customers bring to them. This level of support can
be shown across targeted and untargeted audiences and what they are able to see. The information
provided to other members is restricted in order to ensure success of the project.
Conclusions
An EA implementation would bring information together and have a format to providing a
foundation for executing an adjustment to the way knowledge is created within the newly merged
company. Implementing an IT Governance board, along with utilizing a team of system managers and
engineers dedicated to maintaining data integrity, will streamline technical support resolution and
provide a strong and peer-reviewed knowledgebase that is in accordance with the company’s core
structure of governing information.

7. References
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with Lean, Agile, and Enterprise 2.0 practices. Elsevier Science. Kindle Edition.
Fisher, Roger; Ury, William L.; Patton, Bruce. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.
Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Godinez, Mario; Hechler, Eberhard; Koenig, Klaus; Lockwood, Steve; Oberhofer, Martin; Schroeck,
Michael. The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking
Business Insight, Portable Documents. Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.
Monczka, Robert M.; Handfield, Robert B.; Giunipero, Larry C.; Patterson, James L.. Purchasing and
Supply Chain Management. Cengage Learning. Kindle Edition.
Ross, Jeanne W.; Weill, Peter; Robertson, David. Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a
Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.
Steven H. Spewak. Enterprise Architecture Planning: Developing a Blueprint for Data, Applications, and
Technology. Kindle Edition.