I love the Gap chart that Aaron Paxson made and I think it is a perfect visual representation of what is going on with his helpdesk tickets.
The problem: The Network Operations Team (desktop, server, communications, etc) is consistently not able to keep up on demands. Identify the demands, the why’s, and determine a fix.
So, the first thing I need to quantify, was how do we get so far behind in ticket closures in the first place. When does it happen, and find a pattern. By taking the net result of open to closed tickets per week, I created a “Gap” chart. The “Gap” is the difference of open to close. If the net result is positive, we opened more tickets than were closed adding to the backlog. If the net result is negative, we were decreasing the backlog. Source.
Analyzing a helpdesk can be quite difficult, especially because the problems can range from something simple to something complex that can take a long time to solve. It’s rough looking at it only on pure ticket volume because in order to get a good idea of what is going on its important to look at the types of tickets coming in as well.