I think one important takeaway is also: A good, motivated team will make it work. For example we need to cover 0800 - 1800 due to SLAs, but usually we have 2 gu

I think one important takeaway is also: A good, motivated team will make it work. For example we need to cover 0800 - 1800 due to SLAs, but usually we have 2 guys just organizing Kita (kindergarten) duty with their wifes. One brings his kids to the Kita in the morning and comes in at around 0900, and the other guy comes in early and leaves at 1700ish to collect the kids. Simple. We also had this when our application just went into a royal meltdown earlier this year and we had pretty much constant OOH work to do. Eventually we arranged that I don't come into the office for a week or more, and I'll just work reduced night hours. This allowed us to tackle that mayhem much more effectively - they'd figure out issues and create patches and manual tasks. I'd apply them overnight, and hand them everything that caught on fire this time. I don't like to work at night, but I'm the guy without ties and who's gonna complain about 20 - 25 hour weeks?