Deciding what to work on.
WHAT DETERMINES ORDER
Severity, primarily Age, secondarily Effort, occasionally
WHY SEVERITY FIRST
Something broken outranks something inconvenient.
WHAT TO AVOID
Working newest first Working easiest first Working whoever complains loudest first
WHY THE LAST ONE IS CORROSIVE
It teaches customers that escalation is the route to service.
WHAT TO CHECK AT THE START OF EACH DAY
Anything unanswered beyond target Anything reopened Anything unassigned Anything escalated and stalled
WHAT TO DO ABOUT A GROWING BACKLOG
Establish whether it is volume, complexity or capacity.
WHAT VOLUME INDICATES
Something changed: a release, an outage, a communication.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THAT
Find the cause and address it, rather than answering faster.
WHAT COMPLEXITY INDICATES
Tickets requiring people who are unavailable.
WHAT TO DO
Widen who can handle them, through documentation.
WHAT CAPACITY INDICATES
Not enough people for the volume.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE HIRING
Reduce the volume.
HOW
Fix what generates it, and improve self-service.
WHAT TO TRACK
Backlog size and its direction.
WHAT DIRECTION MATTERS MORE THAN
The number itself.
