
Broadband Technology
Strategy Associates’ Chris Voehl was an Executive Project Manager for both the North Florida Broadband Authority and Florida Rural Broadband Alliance (FRBA), Florida’s two federal stimulus broadband projects. He pioneered Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Lean Management concepts for design excellence in middle-mile broadband.
Key Example: Florida Broadband (NFBA & FRBA) Project Highlights
Strategy Associates was retained by Rapid Systems, the network engineer for both projects. Working with Rapid Systems’ executive team, Strategy Associates enabled Rapid Systems to scale to participate in this large scale broadband deployment to serve 32 of Florida’s rural counties. Strategy Associates’ Chris Voehl created the Master Project Plan for the NFBA, assisted with scoping and contract development for deployment and engineering contracts, developed Operational Support / Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) system models and design requirements, while preparing and presenting project status reports at NFBA board of directors and operations committee meetings.
Chris Voehl also played a major role as an Executive Project Manager for FRBA by developing project plans and budgets and pioneering Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Lean Management concepts for design excellence in middle-mile broadband. By standardizing processes for component testing and distribution, by instituting a PMO to foster program management methodology and best practices (utilizing Microsoft Project Server, SharePoint, with customized support & reporting processes), and by partnering with Strategy Associates to integrate strategic financial / technology alignment and reporting, the combined resources of this team were able to present this PMO infrastructure to the NTIA and pass their site-visit / audit with flying colors.
As a result, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) validated the FRBA project as in-compliance with the federal grant requirements, whereby thousands of Americans across the state of Florida will benefit from these programs by bringing technology innovation to historically underserved rural communities.
For additional information, an excerpt from a larger work to chronicle this effort is available online: http://www.wispa.org/?q=node/138