Define Support Organization

Use

To define what the support organization should look like:

·         Which teams need to be involved in support of the solution

·         Whether outsourcing should be considered as an option

The support organization should include:

Application support
Manages the business processes and implements later changes in business processes (bug fixing and new change requests). For each business process, define a process champion from the functional department. In case of major problems with the business process, the champion is the main point of contact.

Development support
In charge of development maintenance (bug fixing) and new developments. This team needs to work very closely with the application and system management support teams.

Program scheduling management
In charge of scheduling, monitoring, and error handling for background jobs. This is normally a virtual team that includes members of the application team as well as members of the software and system management teams.

Software and system management
Includes all the activities (monitoring, error handling, performance management) of all the technical components involved in the solution landscape. Software and system management can be done by one or many teams in the same or different organizations.

Help desk
Key point in communication between user and support organization. Also responsible for classifying and dispatching problems to the right parts of the organization. The help desk can solve some problems directly, for example, by resetting a password.

Prerequisites

Defined and formalized support requirements

Understanding of the scope of the solution to be supported

Procedure

·         Estimate the resources required for support.

·         Estimate the costs involved in supporting the system and the business processes.

·         If required, invite tenders for support contracts.

·         Decide on the structure of the support organization.

Result

Defined support organization

Early in the project, decide whether to outsource support for the solution or systems. Decide early to ensure that the outsourcing organization is involved in the design and setup of the operations.

With this strategy, you will minimize risk at handover and ensure that the support organization is familiar with the environment.