ABSTRACT
The queue is a perennial feature of almost all forms of service management and none more so than user support services. Queues exist throughout user support – an engaged tone is a form of a queue, it means that the caller is going to have to wait until a helpdesk telephone comes free. The stack of outstanding problems the resolvers still have to solve also form a queue. The heap of work you will, as a department, ‘one day get around to’ is a queue. The stack of papers in your intray are a queue. The promise you made to the user that you will ‘get to him just as soon as you’ve finished what you’re doing right now’ means that he is now standing in line – he has joined a queue to wait for a window in your day. Look at the calendar – the days ahead are all forming a nice orderly queue, waiting for you to deal with them, one by one.
