Production Support and Operations Managament

As the Tech Industry surges towards complete service offerings through SaaS model (Software as a Service) and eventually the business model itself is maturing towards PaaS (Platform as a Service), running an effective (producing intended results) and efficient (well organized) Production Support (many Organizations also relate it under Technical Operations/Support) is increasingly becoming a part of the Organization's Mission but is getting aligned with the core strategy of a Business. Support teams plays a significant role in showcasing an Experience that differentiates the Organization from the rest. A prominent case study where you can read through for understanding is why Facebook bought WhatsApp, article here.

Most of the Production Support activities are either insourced or outsourced (some also follow hybrid model). As with any team, Production Support teams are run by Managers layered across as L1, L2, L3 and L4 (mostly Development Team).

The Primary Goals of any Production Support Team is to -

“

1.Deliver Quality Service to End Users

2.Ensure Day to Day Business is taken care

3.Finally, act and react to secure Environment (Services)

With the support activities directly impacting end users who significantly contribute to the Organizational Business goals, the success factors heavily depend on Service Availability in Production Support hence it is highly imperative that a Production Support Manager oversees the Objectives and Deliverables of the team as like running a Operations (continuous/repetitive) and not necessarily as a Project (specific/has a end).

Many Production Support Teams are run by Managers who follow both the good practices of Project Management (typically PMP, Prince2) and Service Management (ITIL, ISO 20K). These framework provides you the results if only you are either managing a portion of deliverable, say a L1 tasks or if you are managing a outsourced work. The deficiency in the setup will be noticed during the big...