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0000002089 00000 n 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. 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. There are numerous advantages if the FTS implementation is successful which are reduced time-to-market, reduced software costs, increased international relationships leading to better diversity among companies, etc. In Management of Engineering and Technology, Portland International Center for, pages 24582466. Others, such as Gupta [5], also make similar observations and propose that FTS is very well suited to support core agile practices. Because of its uncommon nature, FTS is also least practiced in the industry and has very few documented examples of success. 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. The FTS approach is based on the principle of handing-off unfinished work to the next location at the end of work day. Since these aspects above are reported to increase efficiency, it was also concluded that when these aspects are taken into account the duration of the project is reduced. 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 is a model in which work from one site is handed over to another, which is many time zones away (for example, U.S.A to India), in order for the work to be advanced while one team rests for the night. HWY1S%lI^t#ByFwOC+aPvrsjL What could shorter department turnaround times mean for what youre trying to achieve globally? Managing international teams may be a challenge. But other companies may determine that they can meet their global support needs with other tactics. December 20, 2021. She is a leading digital transformation evangelist for the pharma and life sciences industries. This type of customer support can help you provide quality, on-time support to customers 24/7. 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. By following the sun, the issue is worked on until it is resolved. [14] Josiane Kroll, Sajid Ibrahim Hashmi, Ita Richardson, and Jorge LN Audy. 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 . hb```b``b`2^21 Pc3HbL=6(TMA`2 DeI&6P)be7fLS;X|Oim5kQT,.Fj=,gwK,7# How do companies similar to your own handle support? 4KKq#VPd)M(*=X i d`rdadcNaVdnep!!!!|F_f0b 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. A systematic literature review of best practices and challenges in follow-the-sun software development. You'll have increased response times, fewer delays in solving issues, and satisfied customers. 0000013744 00000 n Response times are increased, delays in problem-solving are reduced, and customers are satisfied. Software tools used for actual FTS implementation must include both managerial and technical aspects, to adapt to the changing requirements of the software development process. Follow the Sun: Introduction (1 of 3) - SlideServe One of the cornerstone principles of FTS is that certain assets are repeatedly shared between the offices at the end of the production circle or a working day so that the second team can continue the production/maintenance. It is a model in which work from one site is handed over to another, which is many time zones away (for example, U.S.A to India), in order for the work to be advanced while one team rests for the night. They are required to fill in a request form through a portal. Follow the sun: distributed extreme programming development. Join 64,500+ Customer-Facing Professionals, Pop up for FREE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP TEMPLATES. Salesforce App Management Services and Support | Rimini Street Another documented case of FTS application was by Infosys [20] in 2005 where FTS was applied to small subsets of the project cycle. While you wont all be in the same room for these meetings, video conferences are fairly easy to set up and schedule. Let's talk about providing 24-hour support without overwhelming one location and forcing staff to work overtime. Sure, this could mean 24/7/365. ICGSE 2009. This is very important especially for industries whose products become outdated in a very short time (e.g. It is used mainly for school presentations and businesses. Another culture would not offer their help unless they were asked while the third considered that presenting the problem was a sufficient invitation for willing team members to jump in and help. Agile stresses on the importance of automated testing to reduce time. 0000066494 00000 n 0000067875 00000 n Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives<br />In-Class Support in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! One of the ways to evaluate the efficiency of FTS is to compare the time taken to execute a project using traditional software development approaches vs 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. 0000069194 00000 n Nurture and grow your business with customer relationship management software. 128 0 obj <> endobj xref 128 43 0000000016 00000 n To say that life during the global pandemic has recentred our focus on health is an understatement. As illustrated in Fig. It's a model that provides support for clients at all times of the day or night, every day. Production sites involved in the software development are many time zones apart. Any issues can be resolved in near real time since theres always a team member ready to take action.. One key benefit of a follow the sun model is high uptime. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more. Stats around ticket volume by time of day will be your new best friend. And that's where the follow the sun customer support model comes in. You most likely wont need to open multiple offices, especially at first, but perhaps a small remote office or a representative located remotely in a key area or time zone may satisfy your customers needs. In California, teams start in waves at 7am, 8am, and 9am (PST). Lucidscale connects to major cloud sources like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to pull in data automatically. 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. [19] Treinen, James J., and Susan L. Miller-Frost. Sign-up and get customer insights, trends, and more in your inbox. What is a Follow the Sun Model? | Global Call Forwarding In this article, based on my personal experience, I will point out some of the tasks the FTS model helps to solve best and what you should know about the FTS model to help your agency reach its goals. 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. By checking this box, I agree to Zendesk contacting me with marketing-related communications about Zendesk products, services, and events. It was developed so companies can provide round-the-clock customer service, literally following the sun around the globe. As described by Carmel [1], the agile methodology is best suited for FTS. Start small so that you dont overpromise what you can actually deliver. Combine all of this with an efficient follow the sun framework, and youll be delivering best-in-class service to all of your users. Research in Follow-the-Sun software development has been done since 1990. Free and premium plans, Operations software. Employees hand off work at the end of each shift to the next site that is beginning a new shift several time zones to the west. Tools for estimating and planning schedules, allocation of project tasks, sprint management, progress tracking are essential utilities for front line managers. Formal systems such as discussion forums or internal Wiki sites may prove to be useful. As a result, the benefits of FTS tend to be concentrated around isolated phases rather than having an overall impact on the development cycle. We've got a true, "follow the sun" model, allowing access to support engineers [.] Several reasons such as misinterpretation of specifications, multiple rework cycles, lack of proper coordination and communication between teams, time zone issues and cultural differences were attributed to the projects failure. Where are our customers primarily located? There are several major differences between traditional globally distributed software development and the FTS approach. FTS is a special case of GSD which aims to achieve a 100% workday in software projects. Most of the current code repositories are cloud based and accessible across geographies. Agile also provides an opportunity for every team to maintain a sustainable pace of development i.e. Background, main ideas and principles behind FTS were discussed followed by a brief review on Agile for FTS, advantages and limitations of FTS. But not every industry really requires that. Several workflows seem to be using the FTS model, but in reality this is not always the case. These difficulties prove that a systematic approach is needed in achieving a quick time-to-market strategy, which in turn leads to the Follow the Sun software development scheme. 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. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. 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. 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. The term calendar efficiency helps in understanding the analysis further. The "follow-the-sun" model is about providing the support that clients and customers need by way of a global workflow that literally follows the sun. Follow-the-Sun (FTS) is a strategy in Global Software Development (GSD) focusing on software development twenty-four hours, seven days per week with physically distributed teams. [3] Frederick P Brooks Jr. The impact of number of sites in a follow the sun setting on the actual and perceived working speed and accuracy: A controlled experiment. Your team needs to deploy a brand-new, process-defining software to all the computers and devices on your companys networks. 42nd Hawaii International Conference on. The work involved a software project developed by teams in Mexico, India and Australia, which followed Scrum. We have also elaborated in depth about the real world examples where FTS was applied. 0000007104 00000 n Positive messages from current users make selling to new customers much easier, and if you can deliver consistent service around the clock and delight your customers, positive feedback is sure to come your companys way. Modern day software development is spread more and more across national and international boundaries. Are the majority simple, transactional issues like password changes and processing returns, or are they more complex technical issues requiring more resources? And when the shifts switch, you'll have each site hand off work to the next shift. The number of sites had only a small impact on the accuracy. It is defined as the percentage of all of the calendar time (e.g., 24 * 7 = 168 hours available per week) that is used productively for work, so, a 40-hour workweek utilizes 23.8 percent of the calendar workweek, showing that there is a lot of room for calendar efficiency improvement. 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. In addition, team members in the Beijing office start at 7am, 9am, 1pm, and 2pm CST (China Standard Time). If the workdays among satellite offices overlap, work can be passed from an office that is shutting down for the day to an office that is still open or just starting its day. Many companies are looking for efficiency in software development in terms of quality and development time. We have showed earlier that using the concept of calendar efficiency, FTS gives lot of room for decreasing the development time. 0000005432 00000 n A follow the sun model can help your organization provide 24/7/365 support to customers across the globe, regardless of time or 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. One such analysis is done using the calendar time [1] available for production. Figure 4: Agile is a perfect choice of software development methodology for FTS. 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. Essentially, it's 24/7 support, no matter where the sun is up, without needing any customer service department to work late shifts. Many translated example sentences containing "follow the sun model" - French-English dictionary and search engine for French . No one prepared us for the pandemic, but it changed the world and how we look at work tremendously. Let your superior service and personalized support work as a marketing advantage to find new leads and sales. Subscribe to the Service Blog below. In addition, passing the work to a new group lets people see the problem from a new perspective. In theory, FTS can increase time to market by approximately 60%, which seems attractive. Organization Support: Role Communications Manager (CM) Description Coordinates emergency communication strategy across teams: customer success, marketing, legal, etc. If youre using a customer service platform with great analytics, youll be able to make data-driven decisions about the right time to expand globally. For instance, I could post for the other team to monitor a ticket I have opened. Oops! For example, another Zendesk customer, Prezi, has teams in two locationsone in San Francisco and one in Budapest. The "Follow-the-Sun" support model is a structured model that works best for service desks that work around the clock. 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. This can be achieved in a variety of ways. On-Call and Incident Response: Lessons for Success | New Relic This is a BETA experience. CNSC released the formal follow-up report to Sun Media, with the un . Network Security in Theory and Practice. ITIL Study Guide: Introduction to the Service Desk | Pluralsight Powerpoint is an application developed by Microsoft which allows users to create slides of important information to present. Are you able to provide 24-hour service at this time? This efficiency further increases with the number of locations and shifts. 0000013868 00000 n From our experience, I would like to point out the major ones: Under no circumstances should the FTS model be reduced to the distant custom support team. In creating a support structure based on this schedule, they examined the business units they needed to support and each region. The initiative was unsuccessful, and the project was ultimately implemented using only the essential principles of global software development. Knowledge transfer and sharing of project critical information with concerned parties is essential for smooth operation of the project. 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. 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. Presenting support model PPT slide template. Or, consider the approach at Solium, which provides an equity management platform that performs real-time trades 21 hours per day. It is always noon somewhere, right? 0000002728 00000 n Project handoffs are done on a daily basis at the end of each shift. Most agile practices emphasize face-to-face communication. I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery store. Organization . 0000013987 00000 n Your follow the sun presentation service - YouTube Project collaboration becomes immensely easier when the status of each task (and the progress made on the task) is clearly documented. And due to these restraints, teams may have a tough time truly collaborating. Treinen and Miller Frost [19] published a case documenting two cases of FTS implementation at IBM. "Follow the sun" is a service and support model designed to address customer's needs regardless of geographic location or time-zone. 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. 0000064464 00000 n Their teams are based in Honduras, Romania and the Philippines. Do I qualify? For example, you may need skilled bilingual managers and associates to help with international communications. Managing and continuing recruiting and growing regionally helped implement the FTS model for all departments and reinforced the ability to provide top-notch customer service. Research concluded that nine aspects of management are important for improving hand-offs efficiency [16]: improving communication quality, ensure knowledge transfer between team members and production sites, management of hand-offs information, developing teams trust before and along the project, ensure compliance of deadlines, establishing time rules, providing proper technology and tools, delegating responsibility and coordination of task allocation. 0000065007 00000 n By staggering their support personnel start times across these key time zones, they are able to meet the service level-agreements theyve set for their customers. Thank you for subscribing to our email communication. In its early days, this customer service approach only seemed feasible for big companies that had the resources to open and staff multiple offices around the world. 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. Start off by asking key questions. The sun never sets for businesses that rely on remote support, and global support, for customer service. 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.. 0000007912 00000 n One of the principal benefits of the FTS model is the opportunity to speed up processes and reduce time to market. However, since we are talking about the FTS model, we already imply that our teams are most likely disproportionate and may need to be more interchangeable regarding specific tasks. Follow-The-Sun Model: How To Overcome Challenges And Discover - Forbes Typical challenges such as coordination, communication and culture differences presents a bigger challenge to FTS than GSD, as FTS involves daily hand-offs. 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. But in reality not many companies are following this methodology due to a few documented successes and a significant lag in FTS research. The. They also divide their support to cater to two groups of customers: participants (employees at companies) and client administrators (HR teams administering equity and compensation). Global software development (GSD) is now the need of the hour more than ever. As support teams brace for an economic downturn, many are leaning on customer service outsourcing to cut costs. How Follow the Sun Model helps you Deliver 24/7 Global Support This way, the problem remains a priority and is worked on until the customer is satisfied. RUC 2003 reducing time to market using follow-the-sun techniques A typical ITSM process can involve something as simple as an employee asking for a new laptop. To fulfil this need, most firms try various strategies such as working overtime, skipping steps and setting aggressive deadlines. 0000016106 00000 n z(nK9:QS%i$MEaab:a=KpLD;so@ Stand-up meetings: Hold stand-up meetings right when shifts are switching from one site to another, so your employees can give the new reps an overview of what's happened, and any outstanding issues that need to be addressed. The purpose of this article was to present a comprehensive study on the FTS model for software development. 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. The iteration period lasts for a short time period (between two to four weeks). It can also be achieved in a variety of ways.