Ticket Tennis
In the new team I'm working with at my company we use a ticketing system. Y'know, the sort of thing that can manage IT requests, customer support cases, projects and tasks, etc. Ticketing systems are widely maligned. I hear various complaints from colleagues, customers, and even our executives on occasion. Sure, ticketing systems can be implemented poorly or used poorly- in which case they truly can harm productivity and customer satisfaction- but badness is not inevitable. There are good ways to use them. Here are Five Things on the downsides and upsides of ticketing systems:
1. Lazy employees can hide behind ticketing systems. [Downside]
One of the purposes of tracking tools is to provide metrics for management such as number of tasks worked per employee and average response time. There are plenty more possible metrics, of course, but it's these two that are abused by some employees looking to game the system. These folks will respond quickly to a ticket but not put a lot effort into actually addressing the problem at hand. Instead they'll look for some trivial way to put the ball back in the customer's court, e.g., by asking for logfiles or configuration details that aren't necessary. This grooms the employee's metrics (making them appear to management to be top performers) without actually serving the customer. A few years ago I heard an exec who was savvy to the problem call it "Ticket Tennis". I liked that moniker and have adopted it.
2. Ticketing systems waste good employees' time. [Downside]
One of my teammates, "Brad", grumbles a lot about our ticketing system. He complains that it forces him to spend too much time documenting what he's done, time that could be better spent on "real" work. He's also frustrated that when he doesn't keep up with updating his tickets, the system flags him to managers as a potentially underperforming employee. Meanwhile he's actually a solid worker. That's the flip side of the Ticket Tennis problem I mentioned above. Bad employees can game the system to look good, and good employees who don't embrace the system can look bad.
3. Use the system to pace followups. [Upside]
Rather than join Brad in grumbling about how much time updating the ticketing system consumes I've chosen instead to see it as a force that can be used for good. Call it "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb." One area where the ticketing system definitely helps me is staying on top of issues. When an issue seems like it might be thorny I have a natural inclination to procrastinate on it. In a ticketing system letting something go without response looks bad, as I described above. Ticket Tennis aside, the truth is that many issues do need a bit more information to be collected. The ticketing system prompts me to check things for completeness. Instead of fretting, "Oh, I don't want to dig deep into this issue right now," I do at least crack it open, figuring, "Well, I can at least check that the necessary information is there and do some triage." That helps my productivity and benefits the customer.
4. Look good giving management what they need. [Upside]
I've gotten positive feedback from management on my use of the system. They like that I respond promptly and enter time tracking data every day. Critics would scoff that that's exactly what the scoundrels who play Ticket Tennis do. Is that bad? No! Because I go beyond simply grooming my statistics by actually helping solve customers' problems. I use the ticketing system to log thoughtful and well written replies. Management sees that, too. Guys like Brad want to think that quality is the only thing that counts. Quality definitely counts with our management, but it's wrong to frame it as an either-or question. Why should it be an issue of quality work or good metrics? That's a false dilemma. A professional develops the skills to deliver both.
5. Use the system as a knowledge repository. [Upside]
Aside from the cosmetic uses like tracking response times and time logged to each project, ticketing systems are capable of serving as great tools for communication. That's obviously true for communication amongst people involved in a project right now, and it's also true for communicating with our future selves. Six months from know, how will someone dealing with a project similar to the one I'm working on this week know what issues I encountered and how I addressed them? If I spend time carefully describing them in the ticketing system, they'll find the ticket via search and read the answers! If I begrudgingly log only minimal data in the system the ticket will still pop up via keyword search, but all it will tell people is something like, "Thanks Mr. Customer for joining the call today, I'm glad I was able to answer all your questions. [2hrs 30mins]" Which search result would you prefer?
1. Lazy employees can hide behind ticketing systems. [Downside]
One of the purposes of tracking tools is to provide metrics for management such as number of tasks worked per employee and average response time. There are plenty more possible metrics, of course, but it's these two that are abused by some employees looking to game the system. These folks will respond quickly to a ticket but not put a lot effort into actually addressing the problem at hand. Instead they'll look for some trivial way to put the ball back in the customer's court, e.g., by asking for logfiles or configuration details that aren't necessary. This grooms the employee's metrics (making them appear to management to be top performers) without actually serving the customer. A few years ago I heard an exec who was savvy to the problem call it "Ticket Tennis". I liked that moniker and have adopted it.
2. Ticketing systems waste good employees' time. [Downside]
One of my teammates, "Brad", grumbles a lot about our ticketing system. He complains that it forces him to spend too much time documenting what he's done, time that could be better spent on "real" work. He's also frustrated that when he doesn't keep up with updating his tickets, the system flags him to managers as a potentially underperforming employee. Meanwhile he's actually a solid worker. That's the flip side of the Ticket Tennis problem I mentioned above. Bad employees can game the system to look good, and good employees who don't embrace the system can look bad.
3. Use the system to pace followups. [Upside]
Rather than join Brad in grumbling about how much time updating the ticketing system consumes I've chosen instead to see it as a force that can be used for good. Call it "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb." One area where the ticketing system definitely helps me is staying on top of issues. When an issue seems like it might be thorny I have a natural inclination to procrastinate on it. In a ticketing system letting something go without response looks bad, as I described above. Ticket Tennis aside, the truth is that many issues do need a bit more information to be collected. The ticketing system prompts me to check things for completeness. Instead of fretting, "Oh, I don't want to dig deep into this issue right now," I do at least crack it open, figuring, "Well, I can at least check that the necessary information is there and do some triage." That helps my productivity and benefits the customer.
4. Look good giving management what they need. [Upside]
I've gotten positive feedback from management on my use of the system. They like that I respond promptly and enter time tracking data every day. Critics would scoff that that's exactly what the scoundrels who play Ticket Tennis do. Is that bad? No! Because I go beyond simply grooming my statistics by actually helping solve customers' problems. I use the ticketing system to log thoughtful and well written replies. Management sees that, too. Guys like Brad want to think that quality is the only thing that counts. Quality definitely counts with our management, but it's wrong to frame it as an either-or question. Why should it be an issue of quality work or good metrics? That's a false dilemma. A professional develops the skills to deliver both.
5. Use the system as a knowledge repository. [Upside]
Aside from the cosmetic uses like tracking response times and time logged to each project, ticketing systems are capable of serving as great tools for communication. That's obviously true for communication amongst people involved in a project right now, and it's also true for communicating with our future selves. Six months from know, how will someone dealing with a project similar to the one I'm working on this week know what issues I encountered and how I addressed them? If I spend time carefully describing them in the ticketing system, they'll find the ticket via search and read the answers! If I begrudgingly log only minimal data in the system the ticket will still pop up via keyword search, but all it will tell people is something like, "Thanks Mr. Customer for joining the call today, I'm glad I was able to answer all your questions. [2hrs 30mins]" Which search result would you prefer?