Follow-the-sun
Follow-the-sun is a type of global workflow in which tasks are passed around daily between work sites that are many time zones apart. Such a workflow is set up in order to reduce project duration and increase responsiveness. Thus, the work is "following the sun" and never stops.
For example, at the end of the day, a systems support team in Silicon Valley will pass its work tasks to a support team in Paris, which, at the end of its day, passes its work to Bangalore, India, which passes it back to Silicon Valley.
This workflow is more complex to implement than local software support due to teams collaborating at a distance. It is also discussed in software development, but is more difficult to achieve because of coordination costs.[1]
Follow-the-moon
A related concept is follow-the-moon, which is scheduling work to be performed specifically during local night-time hours in order to, for instance, save on datacenter costs by using cheaper night-time electricity[2] or spare processing power.
Other terms
- Round the clock
- 24/7-services
- 24-hour knowledge factory
See also
Notes and references
- ↑ Mitch Betts. "24/7 global application development? Sounds good, doesn't work". Retrieved 2008-10-15.
- ↑ Jeff Caruso (August 19, 2009). "Follow the moon, and save millions".
- Godinez, Victor (2 January 2007). "Sunshine 24/7: As EDS' work stops in one time zone, it picks up in another.". Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
- "Following the sun: case studies in global software development.". IBM Systems Journal. 1 October 2006. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
- "Global call centre network slashes costs at Barclays.". Computer Weekly. 11 October 2001. Retrieved 2008-10-31.