Every Service Desk hits that point:

too many tickets. Not enough people. Nothing seems to move.

For us that came just after launching a new ITSM tool. We were forced in to the decision and it wasn’t the first choice. The team were adapting, work doesn’t stop and we were still trying to improve and build the Service Desk.

To regain control, I rolled out a focused, short-term strategy. It wasn’t elegant – but it worked. This is the method that took some pressure of the team and allowed us to re-engage with users to build trust whilst we had the right people and processes in place.

Step One: Categorise by age, not just priority

Start by classifying tickets based on how long they’ve been open:

• 0-7 days – Standard triage
• 8-30 days – At risk
• 31+ days – Critical backlog

This gives you a clearer picture of where stagnation has set in. Tickets over 30 days old often represent forgotten issues, unassigned work, or blockers that were never escalated.

Step Two: Creating two temporary teams

As mentioned this by design is a short-term strategy. I found it allowed us to focus on both issues – the backlog and building trust and ensuring we could deliver.

Splitting the team in to two focused teams.

• Backlog – These team members are only focused on the backlog tickets
• Flow team – Handles all new incoming tickets and quick wins.

If a user or a team has had slow service it’s important to build that trust again. Having a dedicated flow team to quickly resolve those tickets and quick wins show staff that we care about their experience and providing a good service.

Step Three: Assign a reason to every open ticket

Every ticket must have a clear reason why it’s still open:

• Awaiting user response
• Pending third-party action
• Needs senior decision
• Technical complexity / escalation

If you can’t define why a ticket is open, it’s likely a risk or abandoned task. Even if you don’t have the resources to spin up a dedicated backlog team, this exercise is still vital. I often find that scheduling dedicated 1:1 calls with analysts to walk through their own ticket queues gives them the space to pause, reflect, and tackle items one by one. It’s simple, but incredibly effective.

Step Four: Work in waves

It’s too difficult to try and fix everything at once. Structure the recovery in short bursts. I host a team “scrum” each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Discussing the backlog during these scrums was vital. Depending on the size of the backlog you may be able to do these in parallel.

• Wave 1: Close out duplicates, stale requests, and non-responses
• Wave 2: Review tickets older than 30 days
• Wave 3: Escalate or reassign tickets with blockers
• Wave 4: Deliver and close remaining actionable tickets

Step Five: Track, Communicate, Celebrate

A few key metrics will help show progress:

• Number of tickets >30 days old
• % of backlog tickets with a defined status or blocker
• Backlog closure rate per week

Having these metrics configured in a Dashboard/Workbench in ServiceNow will give you a real-time view.

During our scrums we always celebrate the wins.

Step Six: Know when to stop

Once the patient is stable, you don’t keep operating. When the backlog is under control return to the balanced triage, merge the teams and embed the sustainable practices.

Final thoughts

Having an uncontrolled backlog isn’t a Service Desk problem – it’s a business risk. It erodes trust between the desk and the users and burns the team out.

I often think all those years ago when I implemented these things to gain control was the basis for how we operate now. I learned so much about the business from those tickets and the team members who are still with us now. It takes pride and togetherness to resolve issues and progress.