[RFC] Experiment: Using dedicated channel for handing over tickets before leaving on PTO
We currently have a OOO Ticket Management workflow for when Support team members are about to head off on PTO.
I had just over 20 tickets to reassign initially and I wanted to experiment with a different way to handover tickets.
Experiment
- 3 days before I went on PTO, I created a Slack channel #anton-ticket-handovers
- In this channel, I created a thread for each ticket I wanted to handover
- In each thread, I wrote a quick summary on the history of the ticket, as well as next steps and any potential avenues to explore
- I started pinging other Support Engineers who I felt were great candidates for taking assignment of the ticket in each respective thread. I considered the following criteria when selecting Support Engineers -
- Have I paired with anyone in the past regarding this ticket? They will already have some context on the problem.
- Is this ticket a follow up? If so, who was the assignee on the previous ticket? They will already have some context on the problem.
- Is there a subject matter expert for the topic of this ticket?
- Am I aware of a Support Engineer that has a close working relationship with the customer in question?
- Based on my own observations on the skills or topics of interests of my peers - do I think they would be a good fit for the ticket?
- The responses from Support Engineers I pinged varied:
- Most Support Engineers responded fairly quickly and were more than happy to take assignment.
- Other Support Engineers were vocal that they were at capacity. This was awesome, because it allowed me to locate someone else
- Because each ticket was contained to a thread, it allowed for conversation in case there were any questions.
- (Last step - I haven't done this yet) Archive the channel once all of your tickets are reassigned since we don't need it anymore.
My observations on how it went
The result now is that I can go on PTO and I don't need to worry that tickets will be left in the abyss. I also don't have to worry that someone else (ie. my manager) will need to chase up on my tickets and find Support Engineers to take assignment.
I was really pleased with the results since all my tickets were handed over!
Some other considerations:
- I created a separate channel deliberately because I did not want to create noise in other channels
- Some Support Engineers I pinged were currently on PTO - while they could not take assignment obviously, I felt they could add value once they were back
- I did not restrict selections to my SGG (Maple) and happily pinged Support Engineers outside my SGG
- Where possible, I tried to give 1 ticket to each Support Engineer (some did take a couple). I am very conscious that everyone is really busy, and I didn't want to overburden anyone
- While APAC Support Engineers were the main recipients, I did ping Support Engineers in other regions where it made sense
- Ultimately ended up adding 24 tickets to the channel for reassignment - while a few of them auto closed, I was able to handover all of the tickets without any problems
- I continued to assign FRTs to myself even on my last day. I then followed the same process above to hand the tickets over.
- Some Support Engineers that accepted the reassignment did copy my quick summary from the thread into an internal note on the ticket
- Some Support Engineers also sent a follow up reply to the customer letting them know that they took assignment
- Some Support Engineers openly told me that they liked how I approached handing over tickets
Thoughts on current handover process
I think the current processes struggle from the following:
- From what I normally see, most Support Engineers will create a single thread with each of their tickets they need assignment on:
- Most don't have summaries
- They don't generally ping anyone, or if they do, they ping a large group of people
- All communication for all tickets happens in the one thread, which can be hard to follow.
- This gets very unwieldy if there is more than a few tickets.
- I find it more time intensive to follow the current ticket handover process. I don't like adding a summary in the ticket, since we cannot edit the internal note.
- Bystander effect
I'm wondering if we should standardize this approach I've experimented with moving forward.
Requests for comments
I'd like to invite comments on the following:
- If you were one of the Support Engineers I pinged, how did you feel about the experience? Did you feel that it made sense to ping you based on the ticket topic? Were you annoyed that you were pinged and added to another channel?
- What do others think about this process?