A maintenance backlog is not a failure, unless it is invisible

A backlog of ready work is normal and healthy. A maintenance team with no backlog is either overstaffed or not looking. The problem is never the existence of a backlog. It is that most backlogs are counted in jobs, and a count of jobs cannot answer any useful question.

Count it in crew-weeks

Add up the estimated hours of ready work and divide by the hours your team has available in a week. That gives you a number in weeks, and that number is the whole argument.

Between two and four crew-weeks of ready backlog is generally considered healthy: enough to plan properly, not so much that work is going stale. Above six, you are not resourced for the estate you have, and now you can say so with a number rather than a feeling.

Separate ready from not ready

Work waiting for parts, access, money or a shutdown window is not backlog. It is blocked, and mixing the two makes the backlog look worse and hides the real problem, which is usually parts.

• •Ready: could be started tomorrow with the people you have
• •Blocked: waiting on something outside the team, with the reason recorded
• •Deferred: a decision has been made to not do it yet, with a date to revisit

Deferred is a decision, and it must be recorded as one

Work that is not going to be done should be marked as deferred by somebody with the authority to defer it, with a date. Left as ordinary open work, it sits in the list forever, makes the backlog meaningless, and gives nobody the information that a decision was made.

Age it, and look at the tail

Sort by how long work has been open. The oldest jobs are usually one of three things: work that has quietly become impossible, work that belongs to somebody who left, or work that is genuinely deferred and never marked. All three should be cleared out, and clearing them is a good half day.

Use it in the resourcing conversation

A backlog measured in weeks, split into ready and blocked, trended over a year, is the single most persuasive thing a maintenance manager can put in front of a budget holder. It converts "we are stretched" into a number with a direction.