Triage queue
Also known as Intake queue, Work triage backlog
Definition
A triage queue contains requests that have arrived but have not yet been classified or routed into a delivery, incident, support, or rejection path. Its age measures intake delay rather than implementation delay.
The queue before a decision
Triage is where incoming work gets enough attention to determine what it is and who should handle it. Until that decision, a request is neither active delivery nor a meaningful backlog commitment. A growing triage queue delays learning and can hide urgent work among routine requests.
A concrete example
An illustrative team receives 30 engineering requests in a week and triages 24. Six remain unclassified. The team should report that intake delay separately from the cycle time of the 24 routed items, because the clocks describe different system boundaries.
Keep triage lightweight
Define priority signals, ownership, response expectations, and the destination for each class. Review age and arrival rate. If the same request type repeatedly enters triage, improve the intake form or route it directly.
Limitations
Triage is not a promise to implement. A quick classification can still produce a poor priority decision. Do not optimize triage speed by sending ambiguous work into delivery where it creates a larger queue.
How this relates to Weave
Weave can help teams investigate engineering activity after work is routed, but it is not a complete intake system. Use repository and delivery evidence to understand downstream effects, while triage ownership and classification remain in the operational workflow.
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