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APAC Support Pod Pilot

What is this pilot about?

We are looking to introduce Support Pods in APAC. As a part of this introduction, there are going to be a lot of questions, hiccups and uncertainties. To handle these gracefully and iterate effectively, we are doing a pilot run with four Support Engineers and one pod, with the following details:

Why are we choosing this pod?

We are choosing a pod that would be the easiest to integrate into our day to day workflows. We acknowledge that this pod is vast, and will possibly need to be split into smaller pods or made more specific. These are the kind of changes we might end up making during and after this pilot run. For now, we are agreeing to start the pilot with this support pod.

Note: The former areas of focus were defined mainly based on Problem Types in ZD. For CI/CD, the following are the problem types:

Addition post first sync: We have added Instance management to the mix to bring out more areas and challenges to be fixed.

  • Installing and administering GitLab Runner and executors
  • CI/CD (pipelines, yml, Auto DevOps, Pages)
  • Code Quality, Code Testing and Coverage
  • Container Registry
  • Package Registry

How can I access the pod view on Zendesk?

  • You have been assigned the Ci/CD group on Zendesk, which will allow you to see the CI/CD view (please refresh ZD if you are unable to view it).
  • This view contains tickets that are grouped based on a trigger.
  • Note: Currently, this view contains tickets from all regions, all priorities and all forms.

As a Support Engineer, how can I integrate this pod in my day to day?

Our current ticket prioritization guidelines ask Support Engineers to use the following order:

  1. New Tickets in the All Regions + Preferred Region. ZD View: “APAC Needs Org/Triage/FRT”
  2. Tickets without owners in the All Regions + Preferred Region. ZD View: “APAC+All Regions Needs Assignee”
  3. Tickets you own ZD View: “My Assigned Tickets”
  4. Everything else

With the support pod approach, the following will be the ticket prioritization guideline for the pilot participants:

  1. New All Regions and APAC Preferred Region Tickets in the CI/CD View.
  2. Open All Regions and APAC Preferred Region Tickets without owners in the CI/CD View.
  3. Tickets you own
  4. New Tickets in the All Regions + Preferred Region.
  5. Tickets without owners in the All Regions + Preferred Region.
  6. Everything else

A few important notes regarding (1) and (2) above:

  • Continue to take assignment of the New tickets unless they are High Priority and All Regions.
  • There is no expectation to handle EMEA or AMER Preferred Region Tickets from both the New and Open ticket groups.
  • There is no expectation that you will progress tickets in the view that have an assignee. Part of the pilot will be to consider how we interact with assigned tickets.

How can I give feedback during the pilot?

  • Async communication (including feedback) can be shared in the #spt_pods channel at any time during the pilot.
  • This issue can be used to record and share your thoughts and observations.
  • Synchronous check-ins will be held weekly with all participants to ensure we hear, understand and integrate changes as we progress.

What else is going to be happening while we are doing the pilot?

APAC managers are going to continue executing on the high level plan. The results from this pilot are going to be very important in influencing the developments in the wider effort. The pilot will be instrumental in determining and documenting workflows for using Support Pods.

What will happen after the pilot?

We will most likely include a few more Support Engineers and additional pods in the rollout. More to come in this space as we progress.

Edited by Viji Rao