Hotspot Analysis
Eleven percent of Meridian Parts' tickets came from one model of laptop. There were nineteen of them in a fleet of two hundred. Nobody knew this, because the tickets were filed under Hardware, Slow Performance, Wi-Fi, Battery and Other. In each category the nineteen laptops looked like a minority. Put the categories aside and sort by device model and they were a mountain. The desk had been treating a hotspot as weather for two years: nineteen machines, one bad model. A replacement would have cost less than the tickets had. A hotspot is the thing that generates tickets out of all proportion to its size. It hides inside your categories on purpose.
This series is about finding it. It covers what a hotspot is and the few-sources-most-tickets idea in plain words. It covers finding hotspots in the ticket data with cuts by device, application, location and group. Then come device and model hotspots, including the lemon model and the bad batch. It covers application and process hotspots. There, the thing generating tickets is a form or a month-end routine rather than a machine. It covers killing the source rather than the symptoms, with the case built in tickets and hours. And it covers the quarterly hotspot review: one hotspot a quarter, written down. The symptom is the ticket. The source is in the pivot table.
Articles in This Series
- What a Hotspot Is: The Few Sources Behind Most of Your Tickets
The device, application, process, location or group that produces outsized tickets; the few-sources-most-tickets idea; why hotspots hide inside categories; and the definition card. - Finding Hotspots in the Ticket Data: The Cuts and the Pivot
The cuts by device, application, location and user group; the top-ten lists; the spreadsheet method with a pivot in plain words; and the hotspot hunt worksheet. - Device and Model Hotspots: Lemon Models, Bad Batches and Bad Rooms
The lemon model, the bad batch, the room with the failing kit, and the device hotspot table. - Application and Process Hotspots: Tickets Made by Design
The application that generates tickets by design, the process that breaks the same way every month, the owner conversation, and the process hotspot sheet. - Killing the Source, Not the Symptoms: Five Fixes and the Case
The fix options (replace, retrain, redesign, retire, automate), the case in tickets and hours, verifying the hotspot cooled, and the source-fix plan. - The Quarterly Hotspot Review: One Hotspot a Quarter, Written Down
The ritual, the top-five list, one hotspot per quarter, the record of what was killed and what it saved, and the review sheet.
Explore More Topics
This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.