TPM Guide To Ticket Intake Management

2025.05 - Until the AI Agents are ready to take over, how do can TPMs help build robust and effective intake processes to help teams manage incoming requests. Here are 3 options you can try today.

Summary: Managing incoming requests—bugs, features, and tasks—is a challenge every engineering team faces.

• This post explores three common intake models I have seen in the industry: Dedicated Triage Teams, Intake Funnels, and Designated Component DRIs—detailing how they work, who staffs them, and their benefits.

• As TPMs, our role is to shape a process that fits our team’s culture and workflow, balancing structure with flexibility.

• And with AI agents on the horizon, ticket management may soon shift from a manual burden to an automated workflow.

• Until then, finding the right intake model remains key to keeping teams focused and efficient. 🚀

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Whether you're part of a narrow functional engineering team—like an iOS mobile app team—or a fully staffed platform team supporting SRE, Cloud Infrastructure, and Tools, managing the constant flow of incoming requests is a shared challenge.

New feature requests, bug reports, tasks, and exploratory ideas flood in daily. Without a structured intake process, teams can quickly become overwhelmed, leading to bottlenecks, frustration, and inefficiencies.

So, how do teams manage the onslaught of incoming triage tickets?

Over the years, I’ve seen different models used across the industry. Some are lightweight and flexible, while others are structured and process-driven. Below, I’ll break down a few approaches, how they work, how they are staffed, and the benefits they offer. The key is finding a process that fits your team’s needs.

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1. Dedicated Triage Team: The Screening Crew

How It Works

Some teams establish a designated triage team responsible for managing incoming issues. This team is often staffed with mix mid to newer engineers looking to gain experience. They serve as the first line of defense, reviewing tickets before they are assigned to senior engineers.

Process

• Screeners review every incoming ticket for completeness and validity.

• They attempt to reproduce the reported issue, confirming reproduction steps and gathering necessary details.

• If information is missing, they follow up with the ticket submitter before escalating.

• They maintain a list of DRIs (Directly Responsible Individuals) for various sub-components (e.g., one engineer owns the Compose function in iMessage, another owns authentication).

• Simple or well-understood issues may be resolved directly by the screeners, with their fixes reviewed by senior engineers.

Benefits

✅ Great learning experience for junior engineers—exposure to real issues without immediate pressure.
✅ Reduces noise by filtering incomplete or duplicate tickets.
✅ Enhances debugging efficiency—tickets assigned to engineers come with well-documented reproduction steps.
✅ Encourages ownership by routing issues directly to the right DRI.

Best For

🚀 Larger teams with enough resources to dedicate to a triage function.
🔍 Mission-critical or user-facing teams that need a strong feedback loop from beta programs.

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2. Intake Funnel & Form: Structured, Asynchronous Triage

How It Works

Instead of manually sorting through incoming tickets, some teams use an intake form to collect standardized information. The team then triages tickets in dedicated review sessions rather than reacting to each request in real time.

Process

• A structured form is created, requiring specific details such as:

  • Steps to reproduce

  • Screenshots or logs

  • Device/browser information

  • Expected vs. actual behavior

  • Any other additional information to help triage.

• Requests are batched and reviewed at set intervals (daily, weekly, or as needed).

• Teams rotate triage duty, ensuring that different members contribute.

• Urgent issues are flagged and escalated immediately.

Benefits

✅ Scales well without requiring a dedicated triage team.
✅ Encourages completeness—requesters must provide required details upfront.
✅ Distributes ownership, allowing the entire team to share triage responsibility.
✅ Creates a learning loop, as all engineers gain visibility into product issues.

Best For

🌎 Platform, infra, and dependency teams supporting multiple stakeholders.
📈 Teams with fluctuating workloads—this system provides flexibility without overloading any one person.

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3. Designated Component DRI: Ownership Overload Prevention

How It Works

Instead of centralizing triage, some teams assign individual DRIs for different areas. Each DRI is responsible for reviewing and triaging tickets related to their specific component.

Process

• A publicly shared list of DRIs is maintained so others know where to file issues.

• Issues are automatically routed to the correct component owner.

• Each DRI commits to reviewing their queue at regular intervals (e.g., daily, every other day).

• If needed, the DRI escalates or consults teammates before assigning work.

Benefits

✅ Reduces bottlenecks—no single person is overwhelmed with triage.
✅ Encourages direct ownership, improving accountability.
✅ Ensures expertise-driven triage, as the assigned engineer understands the component deeply.

Best For

⚙️ Teams with clear component ownership—where individual engineers specialize in certain areas.
📌 Smaller teams—where centralized triage might be too rigid or unnecessary.

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Final Word

These intake models are just a starting point. No single process is universally “correct.” The best system is one that fits your team’s size, structure, and culture.

As a TPM, your role isn’t to enforce a rigid intake process but to facilitate an approach that improves team efficiency and reduces chaos. Sometimes, that means experimenting with different models, mixing and matching techniques, or evolving processes over time.

Here are a few guiding principles to keep in mind:
✅ Keep it lightweight—if it feels like overhead, it probably is.
✅ Balance structure with flexibility—rigid processes often backfire.
✅ Make it easy for engineers—triage shouldn’t become a full-time job.
✅ Iterate as needed—processes should evolve as the team grows and changes.

And maybe, sooner than we think, AI agents will start handling much of this work for us. I imagine a future where intelligent systems will auto-triage tickets, validate reproduction steps, suggest solutions, and even assign issues to the right engineers—turning what was once a labor-intensive process into an almost invisible background task. Until then, finding the right intake model remains a critical part of keeping teams productive and focused on building great things.

So, what does your team do for intake management? Have you seen other effective models? Let’s exchange notes.

Until next time!

-Aadil