We have over ten years’ experience training clients around the world, including
incumbent and competitive operators and equipment vendors. Key to a successful STEM
implementation is the involvement of both management and intended modellers in a
detailed training programme. We have a two-phase approach, consisting of two days’
basic training, followed by a more in-depth workshop, usually a week or two after
the basic training, allowing time for consolidation.
Developing a working understanding of the tool
We have a very well-structured basic training course which uses a series of presentations
and an exercise book to lead the novice user through both the basic STEM methodology
and the most important software techniques. This course is deliberately written
around a fictional modelling scenario – in order to focus on the concepts – whereas
the subsequent workshop focuses on specific modelling issues of current interest
to the client. The basic course covers:
- Creating Market Segments
- Creating Services
- Creating Resources
- Comparing time-series types
- Defining requirements for Resources
- Understanding when to use Functions
- Reviewing installed units and installed capacity results
- Auditing results
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- Defining a currency unit
- Defining Service tariffs
- Defining Resource unit costs
- Creating Cost Indices and cost trends
- Understanding calibration periods
- Defining global and per-element cost trends, plus age factors
- Creating Collections
- Accessing online help
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Day One: illustrative programme
- Drag-and-drop editing and the link menu
- Using copy and paste
- Managing detail with multiple views for icons and results
- Creating and running scenarios
- Creating Locations and selecting a distribution for deployment
- Using a churn proportion for equipment
- Removing redundant units
- Combining years, quarters and months
- Defining user data and user-defined formulae
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- Understanding Transformation inputs and basis
- Using expression Transformations and cost allocation
- Working with template replication
- Creating custom interfaces with the STEM add-in for Excel
- Linking interpolated series data and element defaults
- Understanding working capital and other financial data
- Creating new graph definitions
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Day Two: illustrative programme
…and then consolidating these new skills in application to a pressing issue
The format of the following workshop is much more flexible, but usually involves
a series of intensive ‘whiteboard’ sessions where a problem is first analysed and
characterised, and then translated into an equivalent STEM model. The trainer’s
role is to coach the trainees through all steps of this iterative process. A framework
of objectives is usually agreed at the start of the workshop, and the training concludes
with a summary presentation of the model elements developed during the workshop.
We strongly encourage the maximum attendance at the basic training, to increase
the dissemination of skills and thus value delivered, and for the right teams of
people to be in place to participate in the workshop. Workshops we have run in the
past were successful precisely because we involved network engineers, financial
analysts and service product managers. The STEM framework provides a common language
for constructive discussion of all network investment modelling issues.