What is "follow-the-sun"

Follow-the-sun is a type of global workflow in which tasks are passed around daily between work sites that are many time zones apart. Such a workflow is set up in order to reduce project duration and increase responsiveness. Thus, the work is "following the sun" and never stops.

For example, at the end of the day, a systems support team in Silicon Valley will pass its work tasks to a support team in Bangalore, India, which, at the end of its day, passes its work to Paris, which passes it back to Silicon Valley.

This workflow is more complex to implement than local software support due to teams collaborating at a distance. It is also discussed in software development, but is more difficult to achieve because of coordination costs.