SDI19: Swarming and Devops for ITSM
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1) The document discusses ITSM, DevOps, and the concept of "swarming" in customer support. It describes how traditional tiered support structures can be replaced by swarming, which involves dynamically assembling teams of experts to resolve issues. 2) At BMC, swarming techniques have led to improvements such as 25% faster resolution times, an 8 point increase in customer satisfaction, and halved onboarding times for new employees. 3) The document argues that swarming is well-aligned with DevOps principles and can help support the challenges of scaling services across complex enterprise environments and integrated systems.
SDI19: Swarming and Devops for ITSM
- 1. ITSM, DevOps and Swarming SDI19 – Tuesday 26th March 2019 Jon Hall Principal Product Manager, Digital Service Management © Copyright 2019 BMC Software, Inc. @jonhall_
- 2. “When I stepped outside the box, my colleagues really appreciated it. But management did not. They put me back. The people that excel and create the most value are the ones that step outside their box” Hank Barnes, Gartner: “Playing Outside Your Box” May 2018. @jonhall_
- 3. LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 1 SUPPORT Classic “Tiered” Support Structure @jonhall_
- 4. Escalation Escalation Deconstructing the “Tiered” Support Structure LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 1 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS @jonhall_
- 5. …when the answer is here… …or here. Issues may spend time here LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 1 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS @jonhall_
- 6. LEVEL 1 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS When tickets eventually escalate… …they frequently bounce back for clarification @jonhall_
- 7. LEVEL 1 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 1 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 2 SUPPORT SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT The system encourages “heroes” (not in a good way) @jonhall_
- 8. involves removing the tiers of support, and calling on the collective expertise of a “swarm” of analysts. https://www.serviceinnovation.org/intelligent-swarming/ Swarming… @jonhall_
- 9. Swarming Network Collaborative Dynamic, loopy Measured by value creation Tiered support Siloes and hierarchies Directed Linear, rigid Measured on activity @jonhall_
- 10. Global Support 24 hours, 365 days. Over 500 support specialists with over 2,600 years of combined experience 200,000+ incidents addressed each year Hiring focus on communication skills Best Practices Knowledge-centred support (KCS) Industry Benchmarking Quality Management Processes Problem Management Collaboration and Swarming Support, Communities and Social Media BMC Contact Centres Support Centres Support Centres Co-located with R&D Pleasanton/ Sunnyvale Houston Austin McLean/ Herndon Lexington Sao Paulo Buenos Aires Spain Dublin Winnersh Amsterdam Paris Tel Hai Pune Singapore Shanghai Beijing Seoul Dalian Tokyo Melbourne Houston, TX, USA Dublin, Ireland Dalian China BMC Customer Support @jonhall_
- 11. Swarming at BMC Dispatch SwarmSeverity 1 Swarm Backlog Swarm @jonhall_
- 12. Severity 1 Swarm Prioritise Swarming Process at BMC @jonhall_
- 13. • Rapid responders • Three agents on a scheduled one-week rotation • Primary focus: Provide immediate response, and resolve as soon as possible Swarm lead Communications Other members Research, coordinate, test Severity 1 Swarm @jonhall_
- 14. Severity 1 Swarm Local Dispatch Swarm Prioritise 30% solved here Swarming Process at BMC @jonhall_
- 15. • “Cherry pickers” • Meet every 60-90 minutes • Primary focus: Can new tickets be resolved immediately? • Also: Validation of ticket details before assignment to specialists Experienced analyst Less-experienced analyst Dispatch Swarm @jonhall_
- 16. Local Product-Line Support Teams Severity 1 Swarm Local Dispatch Swarm Prioritise Swarming Process at BMC @jonhall_
- 17. Local Product Line Support Teams Severity 1 Swarm Local Dispatch Swarm Prioritise Severity 1 Swarm Local Dispatch Swarm Prioritise Local Product Line Support Teams Swarming Process at BMC @jonhall_
- 18. Local Product Line Support Teams Local Product Line Support Teams Backlog Swarm Backlog Swarm Backlog Swarm Swarming Process at BMC @jonhall_
- 19. • Global fixers of troublesome tickets • Meet regularly (often several times a day) • Primary focus: Challenging 3rd-line tickets • Replace reassignments and individual assignments Experienced analysts R&D Engineers Backlog Swarms @jonhall_
- 20. • 25% median resolution time improvement • Customer satisfaction up 8 points • More issues closed in <2 days • Significant reduction in backlogs • Halved onboarding time • Freed resources for innovative offerings Results at BMC @jonhall_
- 21. • Guidelines, not rules • Metrics had to change (swarming breaks traditional ones!) • Some people needed help to became more customer facing • Banned ticket tennis and direct escalations to experts • New tooling practices, particularly mobile and chat Things we had to do to make it work @jonhall_
- 22. • 25% median resolution time improvement • Customer satisfaction up 8 points • More issues closed in <2 days • Significant reduction in backlogs • Halved on-boarding time • Freed resources for innovative offerings Results at BMC @jonhall_
- 23. Another Swarming example – Telco’s “chat servicedesk” @jonhall_ “Three minute swarming”: Frontline support team can put customer on-hold, and jump into always-on chat room with subject matter experts
- 24. • Suggest Swarm participants based on contributions • Encourage and reward • Learn from each interaction • Improve reliance of next interaction • “Reputation” model Making Swarming Intelligent @jonhall_
- 25. “IT organizations that have tried to custom- adjust current tools to meet DevOps practices have a failure rate of 80%” DevOps and the Cost of Downtime: Fortune 1000 Best Practice Metrics Quantified (IDC, 2014) So… what does this all have to do with DevOps? @jonhall_
- 26. DevOps adoption in enterprises “Start-up teams” introduce DevOps Prototype products, Ad-hoc support. Products go big. Support must scale. @jonhall_
- 27. @jonhall_ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Adidas_Logo.svg/2000px-Adidas_Logo.svg.png DevOps Enterprise Summit speakers (a sample), 2018
- 28. Enterprise systems are complex @jonhall_
- 29. • New services and applications suddenly appear • Lost visibility when issues go to developers • Lack of knowledge sharing • New kinds of customer, especially external DevOps challenges Service Desk orthodoxies… @jonhall_
- 30. • Scaling customer support • Understanding the context of an issue • Adaptation to life “on call” • What to prioritise? Fix bugs or build new stuff? • How to process alerts, particularly if noisy/low-quality. …but enterprise realities challenge DevOps @jonhall_
- 31. 2018 State of DevOps Report There’s still a big role for enterprise Service Management, particularly at scale. @jonhall_
- 32. “The enterprise space doesn’t move slowly because they’re stupid, or they hate technology. It’s because they have users” Luke Kanies, Puppet Founder, Configuration Management Camp 2015, Belgium. @jonhall_
- 33. • Work-in-progress queues • Asynchronous communication • Single role teams • Individual over-exposure • Lack of knowledge sharing How to annoy a DevOps practitioner @jonhall_
- 34. LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 1 SUPPORT Where have we seen those things before? @jonhall_
- 35. Global car manufacturer: Connected Vehicles Division Challenge: how to scale support to 6+ million new vehicles every year. • “You’ve got to go where people are” – Senior developer • Tiered support would mean 4-5 days to get to the right team • First Responders instigate and coordinate ad-hoc swarms for big issues • Other teams have 1 person on rotation for swarming • Swarm grows and shrinks as necessary • Swarm may include engineers from Amazon, Microsoft, etc. @jonhall_
- 36. Swarming aligns really well to DevOps • Autonomy and self-organisation • Knowledge transfer and skills development • ChatOps, not email • Prevention of accumulation of queued work • Protection of individuals from burnout @jonhall_
- 37. • Wait… What? • Pronounced “kuh-nev-in” • Developed by Dave Snowden while at IBM in 1999 • Taken independent in 2005 • The word “signifies the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand” Swarming as a means of delivering Cynefin? @jonhall_
- 38. @jonhall_ • Obvious and Complicated domains: • Repeating relationship between cause and effect • With Complicated you need to do analysis to find that relationship • Complex domain: • Understanding the problem requires experimentation and analysis. • May, over time, be able to move to Complicated • Chaotic domain: • Dramatic and unconstrained • Focus on damage limitation, try to move to another domain
- 39. “Obvious” Domain @jonhall_ • “Sense, Categorise, Respond” • Template/knowledge-driven resolution • Self service
- 40. “Complicated” Domain @jonhall_ • “Sense, Analyse, Respond” • Dispatch-type swarm – pair up agents with varied experience • Capture detailed knowledge for organizational learning
- 41. “Complex” Domain • “Probe, Sense, Respond” @jonhall_
- 42. “Complex” Domain • “Probe, Sense, Respond” @jonhall_
- 43. “Chaotic” Domain • “Act, Sense, Respond” • Sub-swarms • Deal with the acute situation • Try to discover sufficient information to move to complex @jonhall_
- 44. • May increase costs even if other metrics improve • Can be difficult to evaluate individual contribution • “Cradle to grave” ownership across time zones • Some individuals may dominate • Finding the right people for a swarm is difficult Issues reported by Swarming early adopters @jonhall_
- 45. “Swarming works better than conventional processes. I am able to get multiple experiences from swarm attendees of similar cases they have worked. If there are no experiences, then it’s perspectives: Decades of experience” Senior Support Analyst, BMC @jonhall_
- 46. “I have probably doubled my knowledge of the products in a year because of Swarming… and I have been here a long time” Senior Support Analyst, BMC @jonhall_
- 47. Swarming appearing in ITSM frameworks ITIL® 4 Foundation (2019) VeriSM – A service management approach for the digital age (2017)
Editor's Notes
- #2: https://www.slideshare.net/JonHall7/is-devops-really-changing-it-support