Considerations

The teams are responsible for both the delivery of features and for the operational support of the product's solutions. This is the essence of Product and DevOps thinking. Teams must be able to balance their capacity against the demand for new features (Rate of Delivery) and the demand for operational support (Quality of Service).

Balance must be achieved in the light of solution maturity. As a product ages, support tends to become more important and new development less important. Balance must be achieved in the context of short-term fluctuations in the need for operational support as the feature and operational contexts evolve.

Requests for support arise or are communicated through other teams in the organisation. The service model published for the solution describes the processes for communicating and resolving the operational incidents and problems. The service model is reviewed and updated as the feature set is enhanced and elaborated, and as the membership and size of the teams evolve.

Levels

Green

Consistently Planned Approach To Service Delivery

There is a documented Service Model for each of the solutions that comprise the product. The service models are complete, current and accurate. Any artefacts required by the service models (e.g. contact rotas) are available and are current and accurate.

The teams are aware of the impact of normal levels of support on the Engineering Capability of the teams and review this Impact on a regular basis. Teams use their knowledge of typical levels of support effort to adjust their planned levels of engineering work.

Amber

Inconsistently Planned Approach To Service Delivery

One or more solutions that comprise the product do not have a Service Model. Where Service Models are defined, there is a lack of evidence that they are maintained or accurate. Artefacts required by the Service Models are absent, out of date or inaccurate in other ways.

Teams are unaware of the impact of normal levels of support on Engineering Capability or do not use their knowledge of normal levels of support to adjust their planned levels of engineering work.

Red

Unplanned Approach To Service Delivery

The product lacks Service Models or Service Models are so out of date they have ceased to be relevant. Plans to deliver support are inadequate to the operational importance of the solution.

There is little or no allowance for operational support activity in the teams engineering plans.