Desk reference
Week 3 · IT support operations

The ticket is not the problem. Reading it is.

Twenty four tickets written the way people actually write them. For each one you decide what it is, how bad it is, and where it goes. You are scored on the reasoning, not on the fix. The user tells you how urgent it is. The user is often wrong.

0Tickets
judged
0%Type, on
first try
0%Priority, on
first try
0%Route, on
first try
0Times
swayed
Start here

Practice queue

Twenty four tickets, easiest first, and it carries on where you left off. Full explanation after every answer: why that type, why that priority, why that route, and the exact mistake a beginner makes on it. Take as long as you like.

Not started

How priority actually works here

You never pick a priority. You judge impact and urgency separately, and the priority falls out of the two. This is the single thing most people get wrong on a service desk.

Impact, then urgencyHigh urgency
work stopped now		Medium urgency
slow, workaround exists		Low urgency
can wait
High impact
a site, a department, a critical service, or money and reputation at risk
P1P2P3
Medium impact
a team or a group
P2P3P4
Low impact
one person
P3P4P5
P4 and P5 are not low and lower. P4 is on the clock. It is at the back of the queue and somebody is waiting for it, so it has a target and it ages. P5 has no clock: nothing is stopped, nobody is blocked, and it is done when there is capacity, often batched with similar work. The test is one question, who is waiting. If you can name a person and say what they cannot do until it is done, it is P4. If you cannot name anybody, it is P5. That question decides the bottom row, where one person is affected and the grid gives you the choice. It does not overrule the grid: a ticket that affects a whole team is medium impact, and medium impact never lands on P5 however relaxed the urgency is.