Prioritize four tickets, then revise your order when the impact changes.

Instruction: Apply the supplied policy exactly. State the initial order, the immediate owner action, and the revised order at 09:10. Explain how you communicate with the people waiting.

Context:

At 09:00 you are the only available Tier 1 technician. This fictional policy defines P1 as a business-critical team blocked with no workaround, requiring an immediate page to the incident owner; P2 as a time-critical single-user blockage or a team working through a verified workaround; P3 as a single-user issue with a usable workaround; P4 as a planned request. Within a priority, no workaround comes first, then the earliest business deadline. Acknowledgements can be brief while an owner investigates.

A: 18 order-entry staff cannot use their application; orders are due this morning; no workaround. B: one payroll employee is locked out and must submit by 09:30; no alternative worker or access method is available. C: a director's wireless mouse is broken; a connected wired mouse works; no task is blocked. D: a laptop request is due next Friday. At 09:10 the incident owner confirms all 18 staff on A can submit orders through an approved browser workaround; the permanent fix remains open. B is still blocked. No security incident is suspected. All times are local.

Updated

Example Answer

Initially I would put A first as P1 and immediately page the incident owner. B is P2 because one person's payroll deadline is at risk with no workaround. C is P3 because the wired mouse works, and D is P4 because it is a planned request for next Friday.

I would send the incident owner A's impact, onset information if available, and contact details through the approved channel. After confirming that handoff, I would start B's authorized account-access process, including the required identity checks. I would acknowledge C and D with their queue status rather than leave them wondering whether their requests arrived. The director's title would not change C's priority under this policy. I would also tell payroll when to expect an update, since its deadline is close.

At 09:10, A becomes P2 because the owner has verified that the whole team can submit orders using the workaround. B now comes before A within P2 because B still has no workaround. My revised order is B, A, C, D. I would record the reason and time of A's change, keep its permanent fix assigned to the incident owner, and update the affected contacts. A has improved; it has not been permanently resolved.

What the interviewer is assessing

Essential: Initially A–B–C–D; after 09:10, B–A–C–D. Pages the owner immediately and follows the supplied tie-breaker.

Stronger: Reprioritizes from verified impact while keeping A's permanent fix open.

Red flags: Executive status overrides policy, or a workaround automatically closes A.

Follow-up

What if only 12 of A's 18 staff can use the workaround?

Example response: “I would assess the remaining blocked team's business impact with the owner. I could not apply the stated all-team recovery assumption or automatically downgrade A.”

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