You're overwhelmed with emergency service calls. How do you prioritize routine maintenance tasks effectively?
With a high volume of emergency service calls, it's crucial to maintain order. Here's how to keep routine maintenance on track:
- Assess and rank tasks based on urgency and impact. Immediate safety concerns should always come first.
- Schedule blocks of time for non-emergency work, ensuring consistency in routine tasks.
- Use downtime effectively by planning for maintenance that can be paused and resumed easily.
How do you balance urgent demands with ongoing maintenance work? Chime in with your strategies.
You're overwhelmed with emergency service calls. How do you prioritize routine maintenance tasks effectively?
With a high volume of emergency service calls, it's crucial to maintain order. Here's how to keep routine maintenance on track:
- Assess and rank tasks based on urgency and impact. Immediate safety concerns should always come first.
- Schedule blocks of time for non-emergency work, ensuring consistency in routine tasks.
- Use downtime effectively by planning for maintenance that can be paused and resumed easily.
How do you balance urgent demands with ongoing maintenance work? Chime in with your strategies.
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Set your status to "Busy" in Teams, so your teammates can handle it while you watch Youtube videos on your phone or invent a new crockpot recipe.
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That is kind of a loaded question. First thing to realize before looking at the tickets is this...I can't be everywhere at once. Next is I'll go through the tickets and see which one is the highest priority. What might be an emergency to you, is not an emergency to me ( just saying what alot of techs want to say, but won't do it!) I base emergencies on a 10 point scale ( 10 being the highest) and work on them based on that scale. It's also important to see if the ticket even applies to my department. If it does not , direct it to the next department as soon as possible. IT as a whole can be wrapped up like this..." critical thinking at a fast pace." This is what we do...all day, every day. Don't let user ( and management) affect you...
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When it comes to Emergency/Major Incident situations, it can be very easy to throw the book away and do what you "feel" is the right thing. I have seen it first hand that our tried and tested processes are not used, when in fact it's the very thing you should be leaning on to support good decision making, especially in time critical or high impact scenarios. Incident Management would look at first identifying a workaround to make to remove impact, followed up by Problem Management to identify and resolve the root cause. TL:DR Trust your processes, identify workarounds, and resolve root cause incidents at a time when the heat is off.
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Mission critical issues come first. Then will quickly analyze if a single issue is responsible for most of the tickets, and resolve it. Routine maintenance is also important, which will be completed promptly too, by delaying requests which may not affect an end user's routine work.
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In this kind of situation i prioritize by handling critical issues first, then using slower periods for essential maintenance, balancing urgent responses with routine upkeep to ensure stability.
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When overwhelmed with multiple tasks, categories tasks base on urgency and priority then tickle each base on those. In IT, you would most likely want to give first priority to Incident Request then Service Request.
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To handle emergency calls without compromising routine maintenance, the key is prioritization. Classify demands based on urgency and impact, and set aside specific times for routine tasks. Delegating and optimizing processes also helps maintain workflow, while preventive monitoring systems ensure that small issues don’t escalate into major emergencies. Clear communication with the team is essential to ensure priorities are aligned. Efficient management guarantees a balance between solving critical problems and keeping maintenance on track.
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Understand that working in the service industry means high volume is inevitable. As technology advances, the demand for service calls, tickets, and emails will increase. Here's how to adapt: 1. Slow down and focus on quality over quantity. 2. Identify repetitive tasks and create efficient workflows. For example, if you frequently use the same email response, save it as a template to save time. 3. Stick to your calendar, including scheduled breaks and lunches. 4. Adopt the mindset that every task you complete contributes to your personal development.
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