IT Operations Management for Telecommunications Providers Training Course

Course overview

Telecommunications providers operate services where minutes of disruption can trigger regulatory exposure, enterprise SLA credits, customer churn and overloaded operations teams. IT operations managers must coordinate IT, network operations, cloud platforms, security teams and vendors while maintaining visibility across mobile core, fixed access, IP transport, OSS/BSS and customer-facing digital channels. This course addresses the operational gap between generic IT service management and the event volumes, dependency chains and service-assurance demands of a telecommunications environment.

Participants learn to design and run an integrated operating model for telecom IT services. The course covers ITIL 4 practices in an OSS/BSS context; service mapping; CMDB and configuration control; event correlation; incident command; problem management; change enablement; release governance; capacity planning; availability engineering; supplier escalation; and operational metrics. Participants practise connecting alarms and technical incidents to affected services, customers and SLAs, then using evidence to prioritise restoration, prevent recurrence and improve operational performance.

Instruction combines facilitator-led technical briefings with telecom outage scenarios, dashboard analysis, workflow design and group decision exercises. Participants work with representative ServiceNow ITOM and Splunk Enterprise workflows, apply TM Forum service concepts, and use ITIL 4 methods to structure operational controls. Each participant leaves with a telecom IT operations improvement pack: a service-impact model, incident and escalation workflow, KPI scorecard, change-risk checklist and 90-day implementation plan suitable for adaptation within their organisation.

The programme is designed for experienced IT and network operations professionals who need to improve service reliability across complex, multi-vendor telecommunications estates. It is equally useful for managers approving operational transformation initiatives because it ties technical practices to measurable outcomes: lower mean time to restore, fewer repeat incidents, controlled change failure and clearer accountability for customer-impacting services.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map telecom business services to OSS/BSS, network, cloud and vendor dependencies using a service-impact model
• Configure an event-correlation approach that distinguishes alarm noise from customer-impacting incidents
• Lead major incident command using defined roles, communications templates and restoration decision criteria
• Produce problem records with root-cause analysis, known-error controls and recurrence-prevention actions
• Apply risk-based change enablement to network-adjacent IT releases, maintenance windows and emergency changes
• Design availability, capacity and performance KPIs linked to SLAs, customer impact and operational targets
• Build a CMDB governance model covering service ownership, configuration baselines and data-quality controls
• Create a 90-day telecom IT operations improvement roadmap with prioritised controls, owners and measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• IT Operations Managers — who own service reliability across OSS/BSS, cloud and enterprise IT platforms
• NOC Managers and Service Assurance Leads — who must turn high event volumes into timely, customer-aware action
• Telecom Service Delivery Managers — who manage SLA performance, customer escalations and operational reporting
• OSS/BSS Operations Leads — who coordinate incidents, releases and dependencies across critical service platforms
• Network Operations Engineers — who need stronger integration with ITSM, service mapping and change controls
• IT Service Management and Reliability Engineers — who are adapting ITIL, observability and SRE practices for telecom estates

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience supporting, managing or improving IT services in a telecommunications provider, managed service provider or network-intensive enterprise. Familiarity with incident, change and problem management; basic SLA concepts; and the roles of OSS, BSS, NOC and service desk teams is assumed. Participants should be able to interpret a simple network or application service diagram and discuss operational metrics such as availability, MTTR and incident volume. Prior hands-on use of ServiceNow, Splunk or a CMDB is helpful but not required. No programming, data-science background, vendor certification or detailed radio/core network engineering knowledge is required.

Training methodology

The five days alternate focused instructor-led sessions with telecom-specific working labs. Participants analyse representative alarm streams in Splunk Enterprise, trace service dependencies through a CMDB-style model, and run a timed major-incident simulation involving OSS, IP transport and customer-care stakeholders. Small groups build escalation paths, change-risk controls and KPI definitions, then challenge each other’s designs against SLA and vendor constraints. Daily outputs are consolidated on the final day into an individual 90-day operations improvement plan, reviewed with facilitator feedback.

Course outline

Day 1: Telecom service operations foundations

• Telecom IT operating models across OSS, BSS, NOC, cloud and service desk teams
• ITIL 4 service value system applied to telecommunications operations
• Customer-facing service decomposition and service ownership models
• TM Forum service concepts for resource, service and customer impact
• Service-level agreements, operational-level agreements and underpinning contracts
• Critical service inventory design for mobile, fixed and digital services
• RACI matrices for multi-vendor telecom operations

Workshop: Participants create a service-impact map and RACI for a degraded mobile data service spanning OSS, packet core, IP transport and customer support.

Day 2: Observability, events and incident response

• Event, alarm, log and metric data sources in telecom estates
• Splunk Enterprise searches and dashboards for operational triage
• Event correlation rules, deduplication and alarm-noise reduction
• ServiceNow ITOM event management workflows and alert enrichment
• Customer-impact assessment using dependency maps and SLA thresholds
• Major incident command roles, bridges and stakeholder communications
• Incident prioritisation models for enterprise, wholesale and consumer services

Workshop: Participants triage a simulated alarm storm, correlate related events and produce a major-incident timeline with customer-impact and communications decisions.

Day 3: Problem, configuration and knowledge control

• Problem management triggers from recurring incidents and chronic alarms
• Root-cause analysis using Kepner-Tregoe and five-whys techniques
• Known-error records, workarounds and permanent-fix governance
• CMDB classes for services, applications, infrastructure and network dependencies
• Configuration item ownership, reconciliation and data-quality measures
• Configuration baselines and drift control for telecom support platforms
• Knowledge article structures for NOC, service desk and field-support use

Workshop: Participants investigate repeated provisioning failures and produce a root-cause record, known-error entry, CMDB correction plan and preventive action list.

Day 4: Change, release and resilience engineering

• Risk-based change classification for OSS/BSS and network-adjacent systems
• Change advisory board decision criteria and emergency-change controls
• Maintenance-window planning and customer communication requirements
• Release readiness gates, rollback plans and post-implementation reviews
• Availability management with redundancy, failover and single-point-of-failure analysis
• Capacity planning for transaction volumes, event ingestion and digital channels
• Supplier escalation and operational acceptance criteria

Workshop: Participants conduct a change advisory board review for an OSS release, producing a risk assessment, implementation runbook, rollback plan and approval decision.

Day 5: Performance management and operations improvement

• Operational KPI hierarchy for availability, MTTR, MTBF, backlog and change success
• SLA reporting that separates technical performance from customer experience
• Error budgets and reliability targets for telecom digital services
• Trend analysis for incident demand, recurring faults and capacity risk
• Continual improvement registers and benefit-realisation measures
• Operational governance cadences for daily, weekly and monthly reviews
• Ninety-day transformation planning and executive reporting

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a telecom IT operations improvement pack containing a KPI scorecard, priority backlog, governance cadence and 90-day roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

ServiceNow ITOM, Splunk Enterprise, ITIL 4, TM Forum Open APIs

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions