Developing a concept of operations: enabling improvement

INTELSAT, an international telecommunications satellite business, is in the midst of developing and maintaining a Concept of Operations as a link between the work it does and the vision, mission and strategy of the company. The process itself has provided benefits beyond the original goals established at the onset of the effort. INTELSAT's historical role has been, as a non-profit international consortium, to provide satellite telecommunications services on a non-discriminatory basis to all nations. Now it is moving rapidly toward its new role as a corporate telecommunications business competing for customers in a deregulated industry. Although its Concept of Operations was initially created with a goal of helping INTELSAT to understand the interrelationships of its processes, it has proved to be invaluable in the transformation to INTELSAT's new role. As a private corporation, it is expected that INTELSAT's Concept of Operations will continue to add value far into the future. This paper will provide a short historical summary of the beginning of INTELSAT'S Concept of Operations and how it has evolved. It will show how work processes and the deliverables they produce relate to policy, mission, strategy, and objectives. The focus of the discussion will be how the creation and maintenance of a Concept of Operations creates value throughout the organization.