At 05:34 PM 10/2/97 -0400, Jamie Rishaw wrote:
We're in the process of developing a 24x7 NOC, and can agree upon about everything except scheduling.
Ahhh, a subject near and dear to all NOC managers. Tip 1) Talk to the people involved, give them a voice in the decision. They will be much less prone to gripe later on if they helped define the schedule. Tip 2) Overlap is *good* in a 7x24 team. No way can a group function as a team if they never have any face to face time. I was, and still am, a firm proponent of this. Seeing NOC people hang around and talk is a good thing; later on when pressure mounts and tempers flare, its much better they be friends. Tip 3) Fixed schedules are better than fluctuating. People need some stability to arrange their lives around. Tip 4) Double up all shifts otherwise, when your weekend guys wife goes into labor early (on New Years Eve), you aren't scrambling for coverage. It happens. To do 7x24 comfortably, you'll need 12 people and a supervisor. We work 4/10hr days, Sun/Mon/Tue/Wed or Wed/Thur/Fri/Sat. People get three days off in a row, including one weekend day. We have our staff meetings/ training on Wednesday afternoons. We overlap the split weeks with Senior/Supervisory staff who work M-F and tie the two ends of the week together. The only ones who are left out are the overnight crew. A night supervisor is responsible for communication/training with them. This is based upon nine years of operations center experience. (hello to those BBN NOC alumni...) Steve Miller WebTV Service Operations Center
We have a few ideas, all of which have really bad downsides:
- 4day, 10hour rotation. 2-hour overlap. - Downside is overlap, and the fact that nobody will have a regular schedule.. they'll be M-Th, then T-Fr, W-Sa, Th-Su, Fr-Mo.. bleh.
- M-F 9-hour shifts, Sa-Su 2x12-hour shifts - Downside is the Sa-Su people are just "extras".
- Su-We, We-Sa 10-hour shifts. Alleviates "skewing" schedules one day every week, but creates a 14.5% labor increase on Wednesday when you have a complete overlap.
Anyhow,, we're looking for information on how other NOCs around the world do it. We're trying to give good coverage without killing/burning out the NOC team members.
TIA.
Jamie Rishaw