The handoff process can become the weakest point in your model due to technical, cultural, and communication style differences across each team., This is where Lucid can really help you shine. VX8pt@I:4QLBfbjT,m}66 Increase response time to solve problems more quickly, and reduce development and production times to get products and services to market faster. You can, however, start planning for it. This research [15] introduced a routing model, which supports the selection of geographical locations for Follow-the-Sun software development. There is also research that studied the impact of the number of sites on working speed and accuracy in Follow-the-Sun software development [9]. They meet their global support goals with these two teams working together, giving them 18 hours a day of coverage without having to staff up aggressively. 0000001891 00000 n Finally, communication is a key component for successful follow the sun implementation. working only during daylight hours. You can turn light-speed production and service delivery into one of the signature advantages of your brand. Then, use a calendar to map out how many employees will work each shift in each time zone and how many hours are worked each week all together. Try another search, and we'll give it our best shot. What Is the Follow the Sun Model? | Lucidchart Blog Initial handoffs mainly consisted of daily work summaries, which were later augmented by knowledge transfer activities. 0000066419 00000 n Since the teams may have different tasks, it is important to ensure that each team has a common understanding of goals, methods and company policies. This is very important especially for industries whose products become outdated in a very short time (e.g. In addition, there is research about location selection and the effect of the number of selected locations. With so many architecture models out there for you to base your system designs on, what makes a follow the sun model stand out? The various agile methodologies such as Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), DSDM etc., share much of the same characteristics and practices and are widely practiced in Globally Distributed Software Development. 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. Do I qualify? 0000063267 00000 n To make collaboration and handoff even easier, engineers and process owners can @mention each other to focus attention on specific shapes of the diagram. Combine all of this with an efficient follow the sun framework, and youll be delivering best-in-class service to all of your users. A clear path will help your troubleshooting teams and engineers coordinate and get to the bottom of the issue faster., Mastering the handoff process (moving project tasks from one team to the next) is probably the hardest, but most crucial, element of successfully implementing a follow the sun model. Calculation, effects, and prevention tips, Streamline call center BPO management with data-driven WFM, Why great CX is the doorway to success with open banking for financial services firms. But other companies may determine Follow the Sun is a customer support method that focuses on providing consistent customer support without regard for geographic location or time restraints. Another documented case of FTS application was by Infosys [20] in 2005 where FTS was applied to small subsets of the project cycle. [13] Alex Cameron. Follow-the-sun - Wikipedia [1] Erran Carmel, J Alberto Espinosa, and Yael Dubinsky. They are required to fill in a request form through a portal. Presenting support model PPT slide template. 42nd Hawaii International Conference on. [18] Josiane Kroll, Rafael Prikladnicki, Jorge LN Audy, Erran Carmel, and JudeFernandez. Some key assumptions in deriving the above principles are listed below: Follow the sun approach involves daily handoff of the work which suggests that there will be some reduction in the project duration. In other words, Follow the Sun is a 24/7 customer support approach for local and international clients. Carmel [6] argues that only the nature of some phases of the development cycle such as testing are well suited for FTS. y&[vx_TsrbV_[tQoMPDv2[%Xq?>R ,&$[f5_vv=EW\p6{`A7ejw@aAs]9#~;.#%hw AVC$+p( We operate a 24/7 global support team - Microsoft Community Another important benefit of the FTS model is the opportunity to learn more about new markets and lay the foundation for the further development of the definite regional market. Here are some major challenges that management should anticipate: FTS is much more complex than the shift method since the teams working on the project are normally disproportionate. Some sites could feel isolated and out of the loop. How Follow the Sun Model helps you Deliver 24/7 Global Support Free and premium plans, Customer service software. There are several major differences between traditional globally distributed software development and the FTS approach. Prezi, for example, has teams in two locations: San Francisco and Budapest. 0000065082 00000 n That means you need global customer service. 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. The effective utilization of code repositories and version control management systems is crucial to the success of the FTS approach. Computer, 42(1):66-73, 2009. These are reactive in nature. ppt.gc.ca. Journal of Management Information Systems, 27(1):17-38, 2010. We operate a 24/7 global support team. Note that it will only suit some business models. 1. CNSC released the formal follow-up report to Sun Media, with the un . As illustrated in Fig. Determine when your customers need you the most so you can define your goals around their needs. If a system goes down or a major bug cripples workflows, employee productivity and customer experiences can plummet quickly., More than ever, customers expect instant action and response when they experience a technical problem with a product theyre using. As a management approach, FTS provides your business with several opportunities that, when fully realized, may benefit your business. listed 36 best practices and 17 challenges found in literature [14]. Oops! Because of these reasons FTS is best suited for Agile. Non-stop development can become a serious advantage when you need to reduce time to market or offer your clients better production, development and deployment terms. 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. She is a leading digital transformation evangelist for the pharma and life sciences industries. Global software development: never mind the problems are there really any benefits? One of the principal benefits of the FTS model is the opportunity to speed up processes and reduce time to market. 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. A key observation from this study is that even after decade long progress of FTS, its challenges are not overcome yet and it may be relevant to notice that there are no substantial benefits to FTS, thus FTS achievability is an empirical question for which a necessary first step is a consistent definition. You will need to determine which agile methodologies are best for the various global teams that help you to track work, allows for continuous integration, keeps team members accountable, and facilitates work hand-offs.. If your teams are separated by 12 hours, no time is perfect to schedule regular meetingsno matter when the meetings are scheduled, one of the sites will be outside of regular business hours. This efficiency further increases with the number of locations and shifts. The second case study involved three distinct projects with development sites in the United States and India, and met with drastic failure. WDSGlobal case study: In 2004 a study conducted within the company of WDSGlobal reported the following list of what worked in FTS software development (when doing Extreme Programming) [7]: The study reported the following lessons that were learned: The study involved teams from the USA, UK and Singapore. The geographically dispersed nature requires the use of software applications which facilitate tele-conferencing, VoIP calling, instant messaging etc. 0000067875 00000 n [14] Josiane Kroll, Sajid Ibrahim Hashmi, Ita Richardson, and Jorge LN Audy. 0000013987 00000 n The truth is, follow-the-sun support is simply a method meant to satisfy customersregardless of time or location. Linear sequential approaches such as the Waterfall model seem to be inefficient for the FTS approach. One shortcoming of this article is that we have only investigated the effect of FTS on speed, not on the product quality because of lack of suitable documented references. The follow the sun customer support model is designed to address customer needs without regard to geographic location or current time. See how this model can benefit your IT department. In addition to verbal communication, teams can also use visual documentation, such as flowcharts, kanban boards, and Gantt charts as part of their daily hand-offs. But in reality not many companies are following this methodology due to a few documented successes and a significant lag in FTS research. 2006. IEEE, 2014. 8. By checking this box, I agree to Zendesk contacting me with marketing-related communications about Zendesk products, services, and events. Is a "follow the sun" model right for your company? We've got a true, "follow the sun" model, allowing access to support engineers [.] Follow the Sun: Introduction (1 of 3) - SlideServe video calls) and process documentation. If your team is still in the lean, jumping phase, you might not be ready to offer global support. 0000013504 00000 n Now that youve done all the groundwork of defining workload capability, visualizing infrastructure, and hammering out the handoff process, youre ready to get your new model signed off by stakeholders. hb```b``b`2^21 Pc3HbL=6(TMA`2 DeI&6P)be7fLS;X|Oim5kQT,.Fj=,gwK,7# Background, main ideas and principles behind FTS were discussed followed by a brief review on Agile for FTS, advantages and limitations of FTS. The efficiency of the number of hours per day spent on actual development is much higher in the FTS model when compared with traditional software development [1]. There was a 30 and 60 minutes overlap between locations to enable the daily handover of tasks. Project collaboration becomes immensely easier when the status of each task (and the progress made on the task) is clearly documented. [10] Eoin Conchir, Helena Holmstrom Olsson, Par J Agerfalk, and Brian Fitzgerald. What is a Follow the Sun Model? | Global Call Forwarding Organization Support: Role Communications Manager (CM) Description Coordinates emergency communication strategy across teams: customer success, marketing, legal, etc. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition, 2/E. To manage the workflow efficiently the principles shown in Fig. %PDF-1.7 % Opinions expressed are those of the author. A global service model in place to keep every team member connected, consistent and making continual progress on projects, tasks, and bug fixes. The first one involved a software development project consisting of teams in the United States and Australia and met with high degree of success. Nataliya Andreychuk is the CEO of Viseven. In theory, FTS can increase time to market by approximately 60%, which seems attractive. trailer <]/Prev 478482>> startxref 0 %%EOF 170 0 obj <>stream Calendar efficiency can be increased in a simple way by working overtime (overload mode), but this only improves the efficiency by 6%. To do this from a single office theyd have to aggressively staff up. Every time you learn you have a new customer base, you find someone to support them. In an Agile based methodology, all major development activities (design, code, test and integrate) are carried out in every iteration cycle. 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. Open Scholars Know How to License Their Work for Maximum Impact<br /> 29. The war in Ukraine also impacted us personally. Free and premium plans, Operations software. Cameron [13] highlights the example of FTS application at EDS (now a part of HP). 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. Follow-the-Sun Strategy: A Process for Global Software Development With rising customer expectations around better service in todays macroeconomic environment, its important to lean on customer education programs to boost agent knowledge and productivityand to help your business retain customers. When a task is handed off from one engineer to another, there is an up-to-date, accurate architecture diagram to work from.. [19] Treinen, James J., and Susan L. Miller-Frost. Their teams are based in Honduras, Romania and the Philippines. Our offerings for Salesforce include the same 24x7x365, follow-the-sun support with a guaranteed response of under 10-minutes for P1 critical issue . As an agency with many Ukraine-based staff members in February 2022, it was the kind of situation none of us wanted to believe would ever happen. Follow-The-Sun Model: How To Overcome Challenges And Discover - Forbes Figure 1: Follow the Sun approach follows a 24h task hand-off based approach to software development. The focus is on using automated tools which simplify the repetitive tasks. IEEE, 2007. In traditional software development, global teams are less dependent on one another and usually do not pass on the work (hand-off). The method literally follows the sun so work is performed during normal work hours anywhere in the world. The organization which we are using in our example has offices spread worldwide and the Follow the Sun support model works wonderfully well for it. HWY1S%lI^t#ByFwOC+aPvrsjL In Global Software Engineering, 2009. The sun never sets for businesses that rely on remote support, and global support, for customer service. Each production site works during the day as a subteam and it needs within-site coordination. Pearson Education India, 1995. Follow-the-Sun in Action One of our partners, a large mobile advertising and app monetization company that gets 20,000+ tickets each week, leverages the follow-the-sun model with a total team of 85 associates to support their customers around the world. And due to these restraints, teams may have a tough time truly collaborating. Within the FTS approach, one of the teams always plays a leading role, being responsible for strategic planning, quality assessment and much more. [5] Amar Gupta. Follow the Sun (FTS), a sub-field of globally distributed software engineering (GDSE), is a type of global knowledge workflow designed in order to reduce the time to market, in which the knowledge product is owned and advanced by a production site in one time zone and handed off at the end of their work day to the next production site that is 2. Theres no reason to leap forward with global support if most of your customers are in only one or two regions. And customers in one location do not get preferential or more support than any other location. 0000016106 00000 n It is also known under different names such as 24 hour development or Round the clock development. As someone who has been working with the top 100 pharma companies, I know that preparation and planning are key. Presentation Mode allows you to show off the specific parts of your design that stakeholders care about most., There you have it. Agile also provides an opportunity for every team to maintain a sustainable pace of development i.e. Follow-the-sun support model is a very common paradigm for enterprise support companies wanting to deliver round the clock critical support for business critical applications. [7] Monica Yap. With this model, none of your locations are neglected or receive better customer service. The three C's of applying a Follow the Sun Model | Appnovation Essentially, it's 24/7 support, no matter where the sun is up, without needing any customer service department to work late shifts. 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 . Unpublished EDS working paper, 2004. 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. Focus on those regions first. Knowledge transfer and sharing of project critical information with concerned parties is essential for smooth operation of the project. Free and premium plans, Content management software. [15] Christian Visser and Rini van Solingen. RUC 2003 reducing time to market using follow-the-sun techniques Hence it is important to select a software development methodology which extends over the entire software development cycle and satisfies the special needs of daily hand-offs. For some, it may make more sense to have people in the office rather than working from home to expand and grow without opening an office first. This Presentation graphic is eloquent and useful for the IT students, IT researchers, and IT specialists from various fields. A typical ITSM process can involve something as simple as an employee asking for a new laptop. When you use a follow the sun model, round-the-clock IT support is provided by following the sun from time zone to time zone. ). hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(53, '12501f7c-8e26-4e3c-9642-7afbe078156a', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); The follow the sun customer support model is designed to address customer needs without regard to geographic location or current time. Most employees do not want to be at work 12 or 16 hours a day. A follow the sun model keeps everyone on the same page, working towards the same project end goal., Lets walk through some best practices for setting up a follow the sun model., While a follow the sun model means teams in multiple locations could be involved, its important to define what the home base is for each project you take on, whether that is your site or another one. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more. For example, our customer and partner Zuora offers 24/7/365 support coverage. However, one slight difference is that Agile stresses on face to face communication, whereas in FTS inter-site communication between production sites is maintained at the bare minimum by using automated tools. Follow the Sun is a support model which works best for service desks that work around the clock, i.e 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The ability of project management tools to integrate with development tools can help reduce the duration of project cycles in FTS. If your business proceeds with follow the sun, managers should do their best to schedule meetings when its most convenient for both locations, and IT should adopt video conferencing and cloud-based solutions for everyone to work together. In Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2010 5th IEEE International Conference on, pages 165174. FTS is a global software development strategy. Regardless of where the bulk of customers are located, if you know that youre receiving a lot of tickets outside of your standard support hours, then its time to start thinking about a rotational support model. The three teams consist of 2 micro-teams (composite persona [17]), with at least one person from each location. Since there is no overlap during the hand-off and the hand off happens, for example, via e-mail, instead of via the phone or other communication tool. This theme is specifically for location selection and the impact of it. 0000003713 00000 n Document what has been accomplished so each site can avoid repeating work. For example, another Zendesk customer, Prezi, has teams in two locationsone in San Francisco and one in Budapest. Make your own animated videos and animated presentations for free. Formal systems such as discussion forums or internal Wiki sites may prove to be useful. Because they have sites spread across the world, companies using the follow the sun model will find it difficult for everybody to be in the same room at the same time. 0000013630 00000 n Infosys concluded that applicability of FTS was limited and highly specific to the nature of the task at hand. This type of customer support can help you provide quality, on-time support to customers 24/7. Follow-the-sun support with JIRA Service Desk - Valiantys The follow the sun model gives your employees their lives back to spend more time with family and recreation. Handing off work from site to site balances the workload and makes it easier for you to offer consistent levels of service at all times. Published: Follow the Sun The number of sites had only a small impact on the accuracy. endstream endobj 134 0 obj <>stream 7. Ultimately, the processes kept running, the staff were not forced to work overtime, and none of the offices were overwhelmed, and that is key when it comes to a successful business model. 0000015792 00000 n IEEE, 2009. What is a follow the sun model? - Zendesk UK Researching into Follow-the-Sun Software Development: Challenges and A novel approach to distributed concurrent software development using a follow-the-sun technique. It is interesting to note that there have been very few documented cases of successful FTS application in the software industry. Two case studies reported on the application of FTS in software development is elaborated below. 0000069194 00000 n 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. Here's how to deliver an experience that meets people's high and evolving expectations. Your team needs to deploy a brand-new, process-defining software to all the computers and devices on your companys networks. Subscribe to the Service Blog below. Based on these observations and the results presented in literature, it can be said that FTS approach is not widely used in practice because of its limitations and challenges. However, manually building the documentation from scratch could be a daysor even weekslong processan unnecessary burden when youre trying to implement a new model., We can help you visualize your cloud infrastructure in just a few seconds. 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. In fact, a study conducted by the CMO Council found that arranging technical assistance and 24/7 accessibility were the top two ways that companies could improve product experience for users.. But as you grow, you begin to standardize, build out streamlined processes, and build teams. To get a proper picture of the background on FTS, there is a need to understand a development pace and its associated concept of time to market, which are the main drivers of the development of FTS. Many factors influence the need to develop the products quickly such as avoiding contract creep, schedule slippages, budget overruns and other managerial reasons. A subteam can consist of one or more members. Plus, with a follow the sun model established, your company will be better prepared to support customers around the world, allowing your business to branch into new markets. Most agile practices emphasize face-to-face communication. Self-service is often the best place to start when building out global support, but some companies overlook self-service because it feels like there arent enough resources to build out a nice-looking repository of help articles. 0000065007 00000 n How do companies similar to your own handle support? To visualize, we created the diagram below: Global customer support might not be necessary for every company, but it's important to begin using a global customer service model if you have international customers who are submitting tickets while you're asleep. Stars, 16 Agency Leaders Explore The SEO Trends Impacting Their Work In 2023, 15 Smart Ways To Address High Employee Turnover, How Vietnam's Entertainment Industry Can Increase Its Global Reach, 6 Best Practices For CEOs And Professional Leaders Using LinkedIn. Fourth IEEE International Conference Follow-the-sun paradigm background reading. Typical challenges such as coordination, communication and culture differences presents a bigger challenge to FTS than GSD, as FTS involves daily hand-offs. 0000013868 00000 n Businesses can reduce the amount of time it takes to progress from ideation to planning and development when a team is working on the project on a 24-hour schedule. Slide 1 of 2. 0000002691 00000 n As described by Carmel [1], the agile methodology is best suited for FTS. 0000067800 00000 n [6] Carmel, Erran, Yael Dubinsky, and Alberto Espinosa. F9,Y%9Q@o:B"w7Fy||:R_q};gxJ2#'S2"8S$I(y'_`}WHw6(iEM:+9%Wl )ThVXNo"iN U=v f4. One of the important concepts evolved in the past decade or so is the " Follow the sun " (FTS) software development. By submitting my personal information, I consent to Zendesk collecting, processing, and storing my information in accordance with the, By submitting my personal data, I consent to Zendesk collecting, processing, and storing my information in accordance with the, The value of agent education and training during economic slowdowns, What is employee turnover? IBM Software Group Rational softwareRational User Conference 2003 Presentation Overview Changing Times - The trend towards globalisation . Implementing follow the sun methods in your global organization can be challenging. See how this model can benefit your IT department. [4] AGupta, Amar. The "Follow-the-Sun" support model is a structured model that works best for service desks that work around the clock. The success cases in the Industry using FTS are rare, in part due to the lack of well-founded knowledge on applying FTS [9]. Collocated multishift locations where labour is cheap and software development happens round the clock in eight hour shifts does not fit in this category. Organization Support: Role Incident Liaison (IL) Description For severity 1 incidents only. In Agile Conference, 2005. Are you ready to follow the sun?. Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free customer journey map templates. If you dont have international offices, create a plan that uses staggered start times to cover the time zones you are focusing on. [2] Murray R Millson, SP Raj, and David Wilemon. One way to implement a follow the sun approach is to have customer support owned by one site at a time -- wherever the sun is up. Network Security in Theory and Practice. At the same time, I can attest that it takes considerable investment, time and human resources. [8] Christian Doerr. Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. 0000065768 00000 n It was developed so companies can provide round-the-clock customer service, literally following the sun around the globe. Figure 4: Agile is a perfect choice of software development methodology for FTS. F @_|Ln VY*ay Te2`nf Follow the sun 2011 - SlideShare [16] Josiane Kroll, Ita Richardson, Jorge LN Audy, and Jude Fernandez. The process of hand offs must be smooth and conflict free. The Follow the Sun model allows brands to spread customer support over multiple time zones, which provides the necessary support that customers might need at odd hours of the night, or if they themselves are living in a different time zone. Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives<br />In-Class Support in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! The follow the sun methodology can be a game changer., Teams working towards the same goals and maintaining the same cloud infrastructure can become extremely fragmented when located in different time zones.
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