Intelligent Swarming Support Model: Getting the Job Done Through "Controlled Chaos"

The best IT services look for ways teams can work more effectively and efficiently to resolve issues and improve customer satisfaction. This can often include collaboration among IT specialists, including the service desk, technical support, and development teams. Leveraging their collective knowledge and skills can lead to faster and more effective ticket resolution. One such support methodology is called Intelligent Swarming.

Below, we define the Intelligent Swarming Support Model for IT, discuss its advantages and disadvantages, and compare it to the more classical Tiered Support Model.

What is the Intelligent Swarming Support Model in IT?

The Intelligent Swarming Support Model is a customer service strategy that involves a collaborative effort among support agents and experts from different teams within an organization to solve complex service cases or major incidents. Swarming is a fancy way of saying "let's get the right people together to fix this issue."

The idea behind the swarm theory is that when people work together in real-time, they can share their knowledge and ideas more effectively, which can help them solve the problem faster than if each person were working on their own. Think of it like a brainstorming session, but with a specific goal and a sense of urgency.

To provide an uncomplicated example, let's say a company experiences a major outage or system failure. In this case, teams from different areas, such as development, operations, and network security may "swarm" together to quickly identify the cause of the problem and work together to restore service as quickly as possible.

As an alternative approach to IT support, it may be better suited to certain organizations. Instead of operating in a strict hierarchy, the Swarm methodology encourages collaboration and cross-functional problem-solving.

How the Swarming Support Model Works in Practice

Let's look at an actual example more closely, as it might happen in real life:

• Ticket Creation and Ownership: The first support agent who receives the case takes full ownership of it. Instead of passing it along, that agent remains the point of contact until the issue is resolved.

• Triggering a "Swarm": If the issue is complex and meets the pre-defined trigger criteria, the owner initiates a "swarm" by inviting the right departments (eg. development, operations, network, etc.).

• Collaborative Problem-Solving: Specialists collaborate in real time using collaboration tools. Knowledge is exchanged on-the-fly, with each expert bringing insights until the root cause is identified.
• Resolution and Verification: The team works together until the issue is resolved, with the owning agent coordinating updates to the customer. Before closing the ticket, the solution is verified to prevent it recurring.

• Storing in the Knowledge Base: Key findings are documented in the knowledge base. This allows other agents at a later time to be able to resolve similar issues faster without needing a swarm.

Real-World Use Cases of Swarming Support

To further paint the picture, here are some practical applications of swarming:

• DevOps Incidents: Development, QA, and ops teams swarm to resolve release-related issues faster
• Healthcare IT: Hospitals swarm when electronic medical record (EMR) systems fail, reducing disruption to patient care
• SaaS Companies: Cloud providers swarm on major outages to restore uptime quickly and meet SLA obligations

Advantages of the Intelligent Swarming Support Model

The Intelligent Swarming Support Model can result in:

• Faster problem-solving
• Improved teamwork
• Increased productivity

With this approach, teams can work more effectively and deliver higher-quality results for an end-user.

A few other key advantages of Intelligent Swarming support are explained in the following:

• Skill Development: The Intelligent Swarming Model can utilize the diverse skill sets of team members in the organization. It enables employees to learn from one another while working towards a shared goal.
• Increased Productivity and Efficiency: When the entire team focuses on completing a single task, there is less context switching, which can drain time. Instead, team members can work together to ensure tickets close as quickly and efficiently as possible.
• Taking Initiative (Empower Your Employees): Swarming encourages service desk employees to take initiative by collaborating with members of development teams to find solutions to customer issues. This approach enables support personnel to convey the customer's voice to specialists and outside development teams, providing them with insight into what works best for the end user. In the Swarming Model, service desk employees make critical calls for collaboration to service inbound tickets.

Challenges of the Swarming Support Model

Although intelligent swarming can improve resolution times, it has its own challenges:

• Resource Coordination: Involving multiple specialists at once can limit their availability for other tickets
• Information Overload: Without clear order, too many participants may cause confusion
• Scalability Concerns: Swarming works well for complex, high-impact issues but is not efficient for high-volume, low-complexity tickets

Organizations can lessen these issues by pre-defining clear activation rules and making sure swarms are properly moderated.

How to Implement Swarming Support

Using an intelligent swarming model requires changes in procedures and how teams view issues. Here is a step-by-step process for implementing it:

1. Define Triggers for Swarming: Identify what types of incidents or tickets warrant a swarm (e.g., outages, unresolved escalations, security breaches)
2. Set Clear Roles: Decide who initiates the swarm, who leads coordination, and how responsibilities are divided
3. Enable Real-Time Collaboration: Use software (eg. chat, video, ITSM solutions, etc.) to connect the relevant team members instantly
4. Store and Share knowledge: Document swarm discussions and resolutions in a knowledge base for future use
5. Train for Teamwork: Encourage cross-functional communication and decision-making skills, not just technical expertise

Advantages of the Tiered Support Model

Now, let's take a look at the traditional Tiered Support structure, which is the go-to model for IT support. The Tiered Support Model operates on an escalation principle and divides the support process into different levels or tiers. Each tier is responsible for addressing support requests of varying levels of complexity. This approach ensures that the appropriate expert is assigned to each support request, which can lead to faster resolution times, improved customer satisfaction, and more efficient allocation of resources.

It can look something like this:

• Tier 1: Initial messages reach the service desk. These employees may not be "specialists," but they have general knowledge across a spectrum of organizational products and services. They may be able to service a ticket without escalating it further. If not, they can route it to the next level of support.
• Tier 2: This level of service can be slightly more specialized than that of Tier 1. They may have more inside knowledge of a particular product or service. For example, this can be an employee who works directly with a program every day as part of their role.
• Tier 3: This hierarchy level is the highest and most technical. For example, this team can consist of developers who built a particular product from the ground up - nobody knows it better than them.

Some of the main benefits of the tiered model include:

• Recurring Issue Management: Tiered Support is suitable for handling recurring and easy-to-resolve issues like simple requests or questions. If your organization's help desk receives many similar inquiries, a Tiered Support Model may work best, as it avoids dragging other teams into unnecessary situations.
• Specialized Teams Not Being Overwhelmed: Tier 3 specialists only deal with complex issues that require their expertise, avoiding being overwhelmed by minor inquiries that Tier 1 and 2 support teams can handle.
• Better Knowledge Management: Each tier can document its processes and solutions, which can be shared with other levels. This process can lead to a more efficient and effective support structure overall.

Learn more from our Tiers of Support blog post.

Tiered Support vs Swarming: Can They Co-exist?

When to Choose Swarming vs. Tiered Support

Swarming is ideal for complex, high-impact issues where speed and multiple perspectives are critical. Examples might be production outages, critical security incidents, or customer-facing failures.

Tiered support works best for routine, repetitive issues that can be resolved quickly by Level 1 support without drawing in lower support Tiers or other specialists.

A Hybrid Support Model of Tiered and Swarming

Tiered and Swarming Support though are not always mutually exclusive. You may see the benefits of Tiered and Intelligent Swarming Support Models for your organization. While you may predominantly receive tickets that are simple resolutions for Tier 1 support, you can never rule out the occasional complex issue that requires the brainpower of many teams at once. With this in mind, deploying a hybrid support system consisting of Tiered and Intelligent Swarming Support Models is possible. Here are a couple instances where training your teams on both methods can be handy:

• Initial Triage: An organization can have a flexible workflow that allows support teams to choose between Tiered Support and Swarming, depending on issue complexity. For simple issues, the support team can use a Tiered Support approach, whereas, for more complex issues, the support team can initiate a swarm to resolve the issue more efficiently.
• Specialized Teams: An organization can have special support teams that focus on specific areas of expertise. For example, a Tier 3 support team can specialize in network infrastructure issues, while another Tier 3 support team can specialize in application-level issues. In this case, the organization can use Tiered Support and Swarming to resolve tickets that require cross-functional expertise.

The Bottom Line: Collaboration in IT Support is Key

Swarming is a strategy that is particularly effective when dealing with complex issues that impact individual customers, such as a security breach on a personal account, as well as larger-scale incidents that affect multiple customers, such as a power outage.

To tackle such challenges, a collaborative approach is necessary, which involves multiple teams, departments, and external partners working together towards a resolution. Swarm intelligence software may also be used to optimize the approach in terms of bringing teams together and for knowledge sharing.

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