0000005432 00000 n 0000067044 00000 n What is the Follow the Sun Customer Support Model? IEEE, 2010. Cloud support model with customer responsibility. [17] Amar Gupta, Rajdeep Bondade, and Nathan Denny. Are the majority simple, transactional issues like password changes and processing returns, or are they more complex technical issues requiring more resources? A global service model in place to keep every team member connected, consistent and making continual progress on projects, tasks, and bug fixes. After considering your demographics and volume, could you make up some of the support volume by using a mobile app? The iteration period lasts for a short time period (between two to four weeks). 0000002842 00000 n The Follow-the-Sun (FTS) strategy is a type of global development with the purpose of reducing the duration of the project development and hence, increases productivity. Agile has several characteristics which support FTS adoption [6]. The above principles allow FTS to be used in any knowledge work (not just software development). If you plan well and start slowly to see what works and what doesnt, you can more easily scale your efforts and ramp up services until you meet your goals and satisfy customer expectations. Having multiple subteams on deck to keep a project moving along 24 hours a day empowers your entire IT department to set realistic short-term deadlines, avoid working overtime, and complete roadmaps more efficiently., Think about what your IT team is really trying to accomplish on your roadmap for the next year. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 9(1):53-69, 1992. Which begs another question your team should consider when evaluating options: How would you categorize your customer base, and does your customer service teams approach require variance between all of them? But as you grow, you begin to standardize, build out streamlined processes, and build teams. We have underlined some of the essential concepts of FTS such as use of Agile for FTS, tools required and learnings from past experiences for the efficient implementation of FTS. Agile seems to be the best and most suitable for FTS based approaches because the principles of Agile anf FTS complement each other. However, FTS is not. Naturally, the language and culture barriers do not seem like such big obstacles these days. 2013. Prashanth G.L, Santosh Malagi, Laurens Van Den Bercken, Ade Setyawan Sajim and Bernd Kreynen are the authors of this blog. 4KKq#VPd)M(*=X i d`rdadcNaVdnep!!!!|F_f0b There is a common product repository which allows each site to be in sync with their work at the end of each workday. The follow the sun model is a service and support method that is designed to address and satisfy customer needs without regard to geographic location or current time. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more. This workflow model is specifically designed to help address customers' needs without regard to geolocation or time zone. Handoffs management in follow-the-sun software projects: a case study. Every time you learn you have a new customer base, you find someone to support them. Sign-up and get customer insights, trends, and more in your inbox. Within the FTS approach, one of the teams always plays a leading role, being responsible for strategic planning, quality assessment and much more. Additionally, if you have a site for each area around the sun, in different timezones, you'll be able to acquire more leads in that location because you'll be delighting your customers with consistent service. 0000064539 00000 n follow the sun workflow in global software development. You will want to standardize on the technology and tools you use to support your agile methodologies and implement, monitor, revise, and manage your follow the sun model. Infosys concluded that applicability of FTS was limited and highly specific to the nature of the task at hand. Theoretically speaking, if n sites are working on this scheme, their development speed could be increased dramatically by systematically organizing the work tasks sequentially on a daily basis and optimizing the coordination costs [1]. 0000068561 00000 n Quarterly Executive. (2006). The ability of project management tools to integrate with development tools can help reduce the duration of project cycles in FTS. Any issues can be resolved in near real time since theres always a team member ready to take action.. Federal Republic of Germany, 2017. December 20, 2021. Tools for estimating and planning schedules, allocation of project tasks, sprint management, progress tracking are essential utilities for front line managers. [6] Carmel, Erran, Yael Dubinsky, and Alberto Espinosa. are manually changeable. Collaboration between teams is very important in Agile, a trait which is also a characteristic of FTS model. Service and development sites are spread out across many time zones, allowing work to be passed from location to location. By its basic definition, "follow-the-sun" means that support literally follows the sunit's a type of global workflow in which issues can be handled by and passed between support locations in different time zones to increase responsiveness and reduce delays. Inverse schedules on an escalation policy - If you have two or more users that rotate primary and secondary on-call shifts, then you will want to create two on-call schedules and add . IBM Software Group Rational softwareRational User Conference 2003 Presentation Overview Changing Times - The trend towards globalisation . The implementation of FTS, if not practiced correctly, may result in failures and projects going over budget [10]. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(53, 'dfcc1cf6-fca7-455f-9c43-26ff2fba10ed', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Get expert insights straight to your inbox, and become a better customer success manager. This type of customer support can help you provide quality, on-time support to customers 24/7. Opinions expressed are those of the author. What in the world is the "Follow-the-Sun" support model? You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. There is only one site that owns the product at any point in time. That means you need global customer service. Let your superior service and personalized support work as a marketing advantage to find new leads and sales. This can be achieved in a variety of ways. They are required to fill in a request form through a portal. We identified three main themes, namely challenges and best practices, location selection and hand-offs management. This facilitates easy job hand-offs and fits nicely within the FTS model. In Global Software Engineering Workshops (ICGSEW), 2013 IEEE 8th International Conference on, pages 1823. The process of hand offs must be smooth and conflict free. To do this from a single office theyd have to aggressively staff up. According to Carmel [1], FTS has challenges such as coordination barriers, cultural differences, and communication difficulties depicted in Fig. I am talking about the follow-the-sun model, or FTS for short. Another documented case of FTS application was by Infosys [20] in 2005 where FTS was applied to small subsets of the project cycle. Follow the sun is also used in software, technology, and other sectors as a customer service model. This infrastructure must always be available on demand and accessible. Because of the hand-offs, work is owned by and worked on by one site at a time. 2 traditional software development stresses on minimal job hand-offs, whereas FTS focusses on day-to day job hand-offs [1]. Where are our customers primarily located? Working normal daylight hours keeps employees happy, healthy, and motivated to work while your company is still able to offer round-the-clock service. on, pages 185194. Slide 1 of 2. The traditional "follow the sun" model is a type of global workflow in which issues can be handled by and passed between offices in different time zones, increasing responsiveness and reducing delays. Figure 4: Agile is a perfect choice of software development methodology for FTS. This project involved five global teams distributed across five different countries. This in turn increases productivity. In traditional software development, global teams are less dependent on one another and usually do not pass on the work (hand-off). Response times are increased, delays in problem-solving are reduced, and customers are satisfied. For example, a baseline work week is 30 hours after taking into account non-task activities. Because of its uncommon nature, FTS is also least practiced in the industry and has very few documented examples of success. That's why as the assets are transferred to the next team, you need to ensure that detailed workflow documentation and technical tasks do not require further clarification. @|Q%q_2.gINPQ1Aq!>(ob@d9I8j3.a(fdb@n@8nZk;aza azv(;@ r endstream endobj 129 0 obj <>>>/Metadata 126 0 R/Outlines 108 0 R/PageLayout/SinglePage/Pages 123 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> endobj 130 0 obj <>/ExtGState<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]/Properties<>/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/Tabs/W/Thumb 109 0 R/TrimBox[0.0 0.0 612.0 792.0]/Type/Page>> endobj 131 0 obj [/ICCBased 142 0 R] endobj 132 0 obj <> endobj 133 0 obj <>stream Let's talk about providing 24-hour support without overwhelming one location and forcing staff to work overtime. The FTS model has proven its potential for decreasing time to market, accelerating product development and ensuring consistent client communication. The FTS model doesnt seem to be a suitable choice for complete projects, when compared to its applicability for particular phases like - testing where it works very well due to less dependency on hand-off work. She is a leading digital transformation evangelist for the pharma and life sciences industries. Zuora also employs a daily handoff model, in which open and pending matters are passed along to the next team when one goes off duty. There exist several case and field studies over the years, which resulted in challenges and best practices of FTS. See how this model can benefit your IT department. This is a BETA experience. Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives<br />In-Class Support in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! IEEE, 2005. It's a model that provides support for clients at all times of the day or night, every day. 0000006358 00000 n Though the teams faced initial setbacks due to cultural differences and technical glitches, by re-orienting their thinking they could successfully implement agile practices across all locations on a single working codebase. Slide 1 of 5. At the same time, I can attest that it takes considerable investment, time and human resources. Our offerings for Salesforce include the same 24x7x365, follow-the-sun support with a guaranteed response of under 10-minutes for P1 critical issue . To help decide whats best for you, your team, and your customers, ask the following questions: When youre small, youre actively jumping to meet the needs of customers. The University of Dar es Salaam Computing Centre is going to offer you in-class facilitation of all of the openEd 2.0 course modules against a moderate fee.<br /> 28. The second case study involved three distinct projects with development sites in the United States and India, and met with drastic failure. It is always noon somewhere, right? FTS feasibility study: In 2013 there was a feasibility study of FTS in the industry [18]. But not every industry really requires that. The top three best practices that were found in research are agile methods, the use of technology for knowledge sharing (e.g. Global software development (GSD) is now the need of the hour more than ever. Formal systems such as discussion forums or internal Wiki sites may prove to be useful. y&[vx_TsrbV_[tQoMPDv2[%Xq?>R ,&$[f5_vv=EW\p6{`A7ejw@aAs]9#~;.#%hw AVC$+p( Companies large and small are able to provide 24-hour service without putting the burden on one site and requiring employees to work late shifts or overtime. Lastly, we showed that there was a study which researched hand-offs management. They are summarized in the table below. Increase response time to solve problems more quickly, and reduce development and production times to get products and services to market faster. Teams must be able to define what work has been done and what work is expected next in the process. The follow the sun model is based on the following principles: When a follow the sun method is implemented correctly, it will reap the following advantages for you and your business. The three teams consist of 2 micro-teams (composite persona [17]), with at least one person from each location. If possible, these meetings could be conducted during the hand-off so that the team can better communicate and share knowledge with each other. It may take more time than anticipated to ask questions and receive answers. Tiered support model with queries and system administrators. Depending on the answer, you might just need a globally-accessible FAQ page or Help Center rather than a team of people always on call.
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