Jon Hall presented on BMC's adoption of "swarming" as a new approach to customer support and IT service delivery. Some key points: 1) Traditional tiered support structures can result in long resolution times as issues move between support levels or specialists. 2) BMC adopted "swarming" in 2014 to replace this structure, having agents from different support levels collaborate dynamically to resolve issues faster. 3) Swarming involves rapid response teams, daily dispatch meetings to prioritize new tickets, and weekly backlog meetings to address longstanding issues. 4) BMC has seen improvements including a 25% faster median resolution time and higher customer satisfaction since adopting swarming.

1. —
Lead Product Manager, Remedy
BMC Software
Twitter: @JonHall_
Jon Hall
Swarming - a radical new way
to deliver service
Servicedesk and IT Support Show, June 2015, London

2. BMC Customer Support
Global Support
Follow-the-sun support - 24 hours, 365 days.
Many Support Centres are co-located with R&D
Over 500 support specialists with over 2,600 years
of combined experience
200,000+ incidents addressed each year
Communication skills and knowledge are key
factor in hiring agents
Best Practices
Knowledge-centred support (KCS)
Industry Benchmarking
Quality Management Processes
Problem Management
Collaboration and Swarming
Integrating Support, Communities and Social
Media
BMC Contact Centres
Support Centres
Support Centres Co-located with R&D
Pleasanton/
Sunnyvale
Houston
Austin
McLean/
Herndon
Lexington
Sao Paulo
Buenos Aires
Spain
Dublin
Winnersh
Amsterdam
Paris
Tel Hai
Pune
Singapore
Shanghai
Beijing
Seoul
Dalian
Tokyo
Melbourne
Houston, TX, USA
Dublin, Ireland
Dalian China

3. Swarming has been used in parts of BMC for over 5 years
Remedy customer support adopted it in 2014
Key drivers
• Customers, and BMC’s Chief Customer Officer
• Desire to reduce median resolution time (“fix in 5”)
• Assessment of existing processes
Background

4. “First I speak with
someone who doesn’t
know very much…
Then I speak with the
person who knows
a bit more…”

5. LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
Classic Tiered-Support Structure
Escalation
Escalation

6. …or here
LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
LEVEL 2 SUPPORT LEVEL 2 SUPPORTLEVEL 2 SUPPORT
The issue can spend a long time here
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
When the answer may be here…

7. LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
LEVEL 2 SUPPORT
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
Ticket may sit at L1
for some time before
being escalated…

8. LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
LEVEL 2 SUPPORT
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
…only to come right back
for more information

9. LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
LEVEL 2 SUPPORT
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
LEVEL 1 SUPPORT
LEVEL 3 SPECIALISTS
LEVEL 2 SUPPORT
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTSubject matter experts are
frequently overwhelmed…

10. “Collaborative
communities can reach across
the usual disciplinary and
organisational silos that inhibit
cooperation, learning, and
progress”
“Wikinomics”
(Don Tapscott and Anthony
D.Williams)

11. Consortium for Service Innovation

12. Consortium for Service Innovation
“Streaming”
Siloes and Hierarchies
Directed
Pre-defined, Linear process
Escalation based
Measured on activity
Intelligent Swarming
Network
Opt-In
Emergent, loopy process
Collaboration based
Measured by value creation

13. “Digital swarming… using
collective intelligence to
break down information
silos.
In the digital swarming
environment, the collective
can rapidly filter out bad
information, which mitigates
the risk of
misinformation”
CISCO white paper

14. To ensure rapid resolutions to
critical issues.
To replace (and dramatically
improve upon) the traditional
tiered support structure.
To significantly reduce
backlog of long-term
troublesome support tickets.
Swarming techniques at BMC
“Severity 1” Swarm “Dispatch” Swarm “Backlog” Swarm

15. Severity 1 Swarm
Prioritise
Swarming process

16. Severity 1 Swarms
Rapid responders
• Three agents on a scheduled one-week rotation
• Primary focus: Provide immediate response, and resolve as soon as
possible
Swarm lead
Communications
Other members
Research, coordinate, test

17. Severity 1 Swarm
Local Dispatch Swarm
Prioritise
30% solved here
Swarming process

18. Dispatch Swarms
“Cherry pickers”
• Meet every 60-90 minutes
• Primary focus: Can new tickets be resolved immediately?
• Also: Validation of ticket details before assignment to product line
support
Experienced analyst Less-experienced analyst

19. Local Product Line Support Teams
Severity 1 Swarm
Local Dispatch Swarm
Prioritise
30% solved here
Swarming process

20. Local Product Line
Support Teams
Severity 1
Swarm
Local Dispatch Swarm
Prioritise
Severity 1
Swarm
Local Dispatch Swarm
Prioritise
Local Product Line
Support Teams
Swarming process

21. Local Product Line Support Teams Local Product Line Support Teams
Swarming process
Backlog Swarm Backlog Swarm Backlog Swarm

22. Backlog Swarms
Global fixers of troublesome tickets
• Meet weekly
• Primary focus: Deal with challenging tickets brought to them by local
support teams
• Take the place of individual subject-matter-expert escalation
Experienced analysts R&D Engineers

23. Success factors
Emphase good decisions on behalf of BMC and customer
• Particularly in Dispatch Swarm: Guidelines, not rules
• Gives teams the freedom to break the process if appropriate
Prepare for what will change
• Backline teams will face fewer, but more complex issues
• Swarming breaks traditional productivity measurements
Ensure staff are ready to become customer facing
• Level 2 and Level 3 are no longer “hidden away”
Make use of the processes
• Use Dispatch Swarm instead of escalations to SMEs
Tools and platforms
• Mobile is often an excellent swarming enabler

24. The results (so far!)…
25% improvement in median time to resolution
8 percentage point higher customer satisfaction index
Big increase in issues closed in <2 days
Significant reduction in backlog
Halved time for onboarding new staff
Freed resources for new, boutique offerings

25. “I have probably doubled
my knowledge of the
products in the past year
because of swarming, and
I have been here a long
time”
Senior Support Team Member

26. Some further reading
Consortium for Service Innovation:
Intelligent Swarming: Considerations for
Starting Out
CISCO:
Digital Swarming -The Next Model for Distributed
Collaboration and Decision Making
Don Tapscott/Anthony D. Williams
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration
Changes Everything
http://www.slideshare.net/JonHall7/

27. —
Thank You
—
Bring IT to Life.™