Design Teams and Translating Plans into Design Criteria

1. Design Teams and Translating Plans into Design Criteria IACT424/924 Corporate Network Design and Implementation William Tibben 20 August 2002

2. Outline • Translating the Plan into Design Criteria • The Design Document – what is in it? • Developing Teams • Leadership v Management • Getting the best out of individuals

3. Design Document • What function does the design document perform? • The design document is the primary tool by which the detail and the vision of the project is communicated to a wider audience. • The document promises to explain how the project will be executed in the best possible way

4. Four(4) Guiding Principles • The task of writing the design document needs to be guided by the following • Functionality: will the end product work? • Scalability: is the network able to grow without major problems • Adaptability: will the project be able to incorporate new technologies in the future? • Manageability: can we monitor network operations and make necessary changes easily?

5. Functionality • Functionality: • does the network support each job function so that strategic goals can be attained? • Does the network deliver end-to-end connectivity that is both reliable and sufficiently fast?

6. Scalability • Any network design must allow for future growth • In physical terms, this means • allowing space in equipment racks for more equipment • spare connection points in main and intermediate distribution frames (MDFs and IDFs) • In logical terms, well structured IP addressing schemes

7. Adaptability • Design Criteria should incorporate possible changes to design through the advent of new technology • Similarly the design should not have features that makes the future provisioning of new technology impossible

8. Manageability • The network should facilitate both monitoring and manageability

9. The Design Document • Executive Summary • Design Requirements • Design Solution • Summary • Appendices including network diagram and budgets/costings

10. Section 1: Executive Summary • Purpose of the project in relation to strategic goals • Implementation considerations: resources required, integration and transition issues, training • Benefits of the solution – once again aligned to company’s strategic goals

11. Section 2: Design Requirements • Characterisation of existing network • Accordingly, what is required in the new network • Customer Requirements • More on this tomorrow

12. Section3: Design solution • Proposed network topology • Hardware resources for both LAN and WAN • Addressing and naming scheme • Protocols to be deployed • Software features • Management Strategy

13. Section 4: Summary • A statement that links design solution to the strategic goals of the company

14. Appendix • Time line and project network • Cost: the reader needs to understand how each cost is generated (hint: best if linked to individual activities detailed on project network) • Results of performance measurement tests • Addressing and naming scheme details • Management-operational-security policies

15. Lowestelement Circuitboard BP-10-1 AD-1-1D-1-2 DP-10-2 FS-22-2 KT-13-1 Designcostaccount OrganizatioUnits DesignWP D-1-1 SpecificationsWP D-1-2 Documentation CS-22-1 Productioncostaccount ProductionWP P-10-1 Proto 1WP P-10-2 Final Proto 2 BProto 15 Testcostaccount Test systemsWP T-13-1 Test ASpecificationsand documentation2 DFinalproto 24 FFinalsoftware2 KTest3 Softwarecostaccount SoftwareWP S-22-1 Software preliminaryWP S-22-1 Software final version CPreliminarysoftware3 Linking Costs to Project Network Gray and Larson, 2000, p. 92

16. Network Performance Guide(Teare, 1999) • No shared Ethernet segment to be saturated • No more than 40% network utilisation • No shared Token Ring segments are saturated • No more than 70% network utilisation • No WAN links are saturated • No more than 70% network utilisation

17. Network Performance Guide(Teare, 1999) • Response time <100 milliseconds • No segment have more than 20% broadcasts/multicasts • No segments have more than one CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) error per million bytes of data

18. Network Performance Guide(Teare, 1999) • On Ethernet segments, less than 0.1 % of packets result in collisions • On the Token Ring segments, less than 0.1% of the packets are soft errors not related to ring insertion • On FFDI segments, there has been no more than one ring operation per hour not related to ring insertion

19. Network Performance Guide(Teare, 1999) • Routers are not over-utilised (5 minute CPU utilisation no more than 75% • The number of output queue drops has not exceeded more than 100 in any hour on any router • The number of input queue drops has not exceeded more than 50 in any hour on any router

20. Network Performance Guide(Teare, 1999) • The number of buffer misses has not exceeded more than 25 in an hour on any router • The number of ignored packets has not exceeded more than 10 in an hour on any interface on a router

21. Creating Design Teams • Different skills are required of project leaders through the life of a project. • In the early stages, the emphasis should be on leadership • In the latter stages, the emphasis should be on management

22. Leaders focus on Vision Selling what and why Longer range People Democracy Enabling Developing Challenging Managers focus on Objectives Telling how and when Shorter range Organisation & structure Autocracy Restraining Maintaining Conforming Leadership and Management

23. Leaders focus on Originating Innovating Directing Policy Flexibility Risk (opportunity) Top line Managers focus on Imitating Administering Controlling Procedures Consistency Risk (avoidance) Bottom line Leadership and Management (Verma, 1996, p. 223)

24. Team Composition- Getting the Best Out of Individuals • It makes sense to develop a team with heterogeneous and complementary skills • Try to match people’s skills and interests to the kind of tasks they will perform.

25. Everyone is Different! • Converger – preference for active experimentation and abstract conceptualisation, strong in practical application of ideas • Diverger – preference for concrete experience and reflective observation, strong in imaginative ability, generating ideas • Assimilator –preference for abstract conceptualisation and reflective observation, strong in creating theoretical models, inductive reasoning • Accommodator – preference for concrete experience and active experimentation, strong in getting things done, intuitive problem solving

26. References • Cisco, 2001, Cisco Academy Networking Program: Second Year Companion Guide, Cisco Press Indianapolis. • Teare, D. 1999, Designing Cisco Networks, Cisco Press Indianapolis. • Verma, V. K. 1996, The Human Aspects of Project Management: Human Resource Skills for the Project Manager, Vol. 2, Project management Institute, Sylva, North Carolina.