Ticket prioritisation

Impact against urgency

The classic and still the best approach. Impact is how many people or how much money is affected; urgency is how fast it gets worse. Priority is the combination.

The value of splitting them is that both are questions about the world rather than about the sender's tone – and tone is what makes schemes drift.

Why everything becomes high

Two reasons. The customer sets it, and everyone's own problem is urgent. Or the agent sets it based on how insistent the email was, which rewards insistence.

Both are fixed the same way: priority is derived from written definitions, not from adjectives.

Three levels is usually enough

• Critical – work has stopped, no workaround. Defined narrowly enough to stay rare.
• High – significantly impaired, or a workaround that costs real time.
• Normal – everything else, which is most of it.

A fourth level tends to become a synonym for one of the others within a month.

Write the definitions down

Not "very important" but "production system unavailable for more than one user, no workaround". A definition somebody can check is the only thing that stops the scheme drifting.

Let the priority do something

If a critical ticket is not visibly different – in the list, in the deadline, in who is told – then the field is decoration. Connect it to the SLA class, described in setting up SLAs.

Review it quarterly

Count how many tickets were critical. If it is more than a few per cent, the definition has drifted. Tighten it, and tell the team why rather than just changing it.