I've no experience in scheduling for a NOC, but have managed support organizations that operate 24/7. My general conclussions are that not everything works for everyone AND you will get burnout regardless of the schedule. However some things I've learned about 24/7 schedules -- 1. People tend to be better able to deal with 10 hour shifts. Some people can deal with 12 hours shifts but people get more surly and the burn out is higher. 2. Some overlap is good. You need a time to relay implicit knowledge (we all wish everything was written down, but reality dictates otherwise). In fact a Wednesday overlap is probably really not that bad at all - It provides a great time for any kind of triage or department meetings that might need to occur. Jamie Rishaw wrote:
We're in the process of developing a 24x7 NOC, and can agree upon about everything except scheduling.
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