Sun Services is transforming its global support services.  Although it is a challenging time to embark on a global transformation, (i.e. there are resource constraints and we are currently changing the underlying infrastructure), the best timing is to start sooner rather than later.

Why Transform?  The industry is changing and requires established companies to compete in a market of emerging new demands.  Sun must be able to make specialized expertise accessible locally, Just-In-Time and cost-effectively, on a global scale.  Sun Services has to maintain profitability and customer satisfaction levels while expanding support to third-parties, emerging technologies, value-added services and enterprise customer environments. 

How? Sun is leveraging Outsights’ Integrated Solutions Network^SM (ISN^SM)⁽¹⁾ to create increasing performance capacity and customer value.  The ISN model embeds an operationalized model of Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) with regulated collaborative workflows and value-based performance metrics so the operational environment becomes self-sustaining and adapts to enable growth without added costs as it matures.

The ISN model transforms support operations to function as a network so it can scale and avoid backlogs of content reviews, growing case volume, and a level of work overhead associated with Knowledge Management (KM) and Case Management (CM) the organization cannot justify.

The ISN model will be adopted in three phases over several years within the Services organization. 

• Phase 1 Develop capacity from existing resources
• Phase 2 Form performance-based teams to pull in people dynamically
• Phase 3 Transform the support organization into a value-creating network 

Phase 1 focuses on providing consistent resolution logic.  Normalization^SM(2) is a method Sun Services will leverage to accomplish problem resolution consistency.  The methodology engages qualified resources to organize and manage knowledge according to domains of resolution paths which cut across products.  It is not meant to “clean up” content but rather to structure it according to contextual logic paths which guide the user consistently.  It scales back the quantity of needed content reducing the overhead required to maintain it.  And, it enables consistent problem codification of cases.  The outcome of the effort shows improvement in the time to resolve (TTR) of 25% to 55%.

Sun already had a KM/KCS strategy but it was not performing.  Having good content is not enough.  Measuring the use of content does not provide a meaningful indication of value.  The meaningful impact of content for support lies in its ability to influence a reduction in the variation with which support people solve problems.  Sun’s first area of opportunity lies in trying to reduce the variability with which known problems are solved.  Known problems are those which have already happened but are approached differently by different people.

Measuring Consistency - A metric called the Index of Variance (IOV) is calculated to examine where variability exists in the case resolutions.  Once the IOV analysis has been done, Sun Normalization SMEs will normalize content in areas where the variance is considered high. The gray area is a target for reducing variation and increasing consistency within a problem area.

Increased consistency lowers work time and frees people to work on expertise teams across global organizational boundaries.

Phase 2 focuses on leveraging the most relevant, least expensive resource.  This will enable putting resources on the unknown problems through a specific interaction method called Regulated Collaboration.  Through this method, engineers will be systematically recommended for situations based on prior performance history, interaction attributes, and subject-matter expertise.  The outcome of the effort will be to improve the TTR on the unknown problems or new issues not seen frequently.  

Phase 3 creates proactive focus on value.  Once TTR has improved through increased consistency and the ability to understand the nature of customer demand has been aligned to the performance of resources, Services will be enabled by continuous improvement processes.  Cycles of collaborative workflows which transform unknowns to knowns will be measured.  This cycle, at a domain level, is a more important measure to focus on than TTR at an incident level.  Adopting economic value-based metrics in Phase 3, will allow Sun to understand where they are providing value and having impact on the most costly issues.  It will create a combined view of cost, variation in how the problem was solved, and quality of the approach used to solve the problem. 

The most difficult step is the first which must leverage existing resources to start the transformation.  Phases 2 and 3 will build upon the initial phase.  To get started, the organization selected problem solving specialists which we called Normalization Subject Matter Specialists (SME).  Sun stopped the traditional expenditure of effort in creating content as part of the support workflow.  Why stop to fill in pot holes when a new road can address a whole collection of holes all at once?

The Normalization SMEs are people who stop reviewing content and start managing domains.  Initially, they are dedicated to only a few of their eventual responsibilities.  The domain level responsibilities are as follows:

• Set up domains
• Frame resolution paths*
• Monitor results*
• Monitor content development*
• Content release with  product release cycle
• Partner transfer of knowledge
• Monitor emerging issues

The bolded items are the responsibilities the SMEs will focus on until additional capacity is created from leveraging resolution paths and reducing the IOV for the problem areas in their domain. 

The capacity gains are expected to be very high.  It is these gains that will enable Sun to repurpose much of the work force to deliver the value-added services customers are demanding. 

The Services transformation within Sun Services will not be without challenges.  Infrastructure transitions and resource constraints create challenges for Phase 1 specifically, but there have already been results enough across varied product areas (e.g. improved TTR of 25% to over 50%) to motivate the work.  Each area of the Global Sun Services organization has their action plans and are executing.  It will be exciting to continue to report Sun progress over the phases of this transformation.

About Tim Rice…………………………………………………………………

Tim has been in the high tech industry for 30 years, working in the areas of the field, corporate staff, and support centers.  He has adopted knowledge management practices in Data General, EMC, StorageTek, and currently Sun Microsystems. Tim also led a team to achieve SSPA Certification for Data General in 1999 and 2000.

About Livia Wilson……………………………………………………………

Livia Wilson is the President and Co-Founder of Outsights, Inc. Livia has more than 20 years professional experience in organizational leadership and development, development and implementation of Knowledge Centered Support Strategies and continuous process improvement processes for service delivery.  Outsights supports knowledge management, performance management, resource management and interaction management models which create sustained high performance.

For any additional information on the transformation at Sun, please contact Tim Rice at Tim.Rice@sun.com or Livia Wilson at lwilson@outsights.com.

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