You wake up to a crisis. 1000 tickets are overdue. Customers are angry. Leadership is asking questions.
So you do what feels right: throw everyone at the backlog. All hands on deck. Clear the pile.
Here's what happens next:
While your entire team is heads-down on old tickets, new tickets keep coming in. They wait. They age. They become overdue.
You clear the backlog. You look up. There's a new backlog.
You've just traded one crisis for another.
The Core Insight: Flow vs Stock.
When you have a backlog, you're dealing with two different problems:
Stock: The pile of old stuff that's already delayed.
Flow: The new stuff coming in right now.
Most people treat these as one problem. They're not. They need different strategies.
The Algorithm.
Step 1: Split your team.
Don't put everyone on the backlog. Split into two groups:
Flow team: Handles all new incoming work
Stock team: Handles the backlog
The ratio depends on your situation. Maybe 50-50. Maybe 70-30. But never 100-0.
Step 2: Flow team uses FIFO.
First In, First Out. Normal operations.
New ticket comes in → process it → send it out within SLA.
The Flow team's job is to stop the bleeding. No new tickets should become overdue while you're clearing the backlog.
Step 3: Stock team uses LIFO.
Last In, First Out. This is counterintuitive but critical.
Why LIFO? Because you're in triage mode. The question is: how many can you save?
A ticket from yesterday might still be saveable - the customer is frustrated but recoverable
A ticket from two weeks ago? The damage is done. The customer has probably already churned or found another solution
Work backwards from the most recent. Save the ones you can still save.
Step 4: Float capacity from Flow to Stock.
Flow workload is usually more predictable. When Flow team has spare capacity, they pick up Stock tickets.
This naturally balances the work without dedicated reallocation.
The Triage Mindset.
This is hard for people to accept: some tickets are already dead.
A ticket that's been waiting 3 weeks? That customer relationship is damaged. Processing it now doesn't undo the damage. It just closes the ticket.
You have to accept this reality:
Some are dead. They can't be more dead.
Your job is to minimize total damage
Every minute spent on a dead ticket is a minute not spent saving a live one
This isn't about being callous. It's about being effective. You can't save everyone. Save the ones you can.
The Overnight Example.
This applies to daily operations too, not just crisis mode.
Scenario: Your team works 9am-6pm. Tickets come in overnight. When you start in the morning, you have:
50 tickets from overnight (submitted 10pm-8am)
New tickets coming in starting 9am
Most teams process in order: start with overnight tickets, work through the queue.
Wrong.
Think about customer expectations:
Overnight senders: They know you're not working. They expect a response sometime in the morning. A 2-hour wait feels normal.
Morning senders: They're sending while you're working. They expect a response now. A 2-hour wait feels like being ignored.
The overnight tickets can wait a bit longer. The morning tickets can't.
Flow first, then Stock.
When This Applies.
This isn't just for customer tickets. The pattern applies anywhere you have:
Email backlog + new emails coming in
Bug backlog + new bugs being reported
Hiring pipeline backlog + new candidates applying
Project backlog + new requests coming in
Anytime you have accumulated work AND new work arriving, the same logic applies.
The Step Everyone Skips.
Before you start clearing anything, ask: Why did this pile up?
If you don't fix the root cause, you'll be back here next month.
Common causes:
Understaffed for the volume
Process bottleneck somewhere upstream
Unclear ownership
System issues creating rework
Clear the backlog AND fix the cause. Otherwise you're just bailing water.
The Playbook Summary.
Split: Flow team + Stock team.
Flow uses FIFO: Stop the bleeding, no new delays.
Stock uses LIFO: Triage, save who you can.
Float capacity: Flow → Stock when available.
Accept triage: Some are dead, minimize total damage.
Fix root cause: Or you'll be back here again.
Stop the bleeding before you clean the wound.
Have you dealt with backlog crises? What worked for you? Let me know in comments.
~Discovering Turiya@work@life
