SupportStep describes a model for organizing and
managing an application support team. Most of the content of SupportStep is
related to true support. In most organizations, however, some things that
the support teams work on are actually not support at all. Some of the
non-support work is executed in the support group because they have the
right skills and knowledge to complete the work most efficiently. In
general, there is nothing wrong with a mix of work that includes support and
non-support activities.
A good example of non-support work is discretionary
requests (enhancements). Many support groups also work on discretionary
requests. It makes sense since they can complete these requests much more
quickly than other people who are not as familiar with the application.
However, when you allocate the group workload and when the team reports
time, you need to segregate the time spent on these requests. In other
words, if you are asked the level of effort it takes to support the
applications, do not include the time spent on discretionary requests. If
you do, you will overstate the basic support needs of the applications.
