Week 7 Field session: Filing for a number

Putting a measurement on a queue that publishes nothing, starting with a real request for its length.

21 April 2027

Marta joins us for this one, which makes it the only session of the semester with somebody in the room who has actually sat on the other side of the request you are busy writing. Do make use of her.

What happens#

Thirty minutes. Pick an invisible queue. It cannot be yours; yours is visible, that was the point of week 1. Past years have used the campus counselling waitlist, a state housing register, a visa subclass, a specialist referral pathway and the university’s own complaints process.

Forty minutes, drafting. You write a request for three numbers. Current queue length, arrival rate, median time to service. Marta reads them over your shoulder and tells you which ones will be refused and why, which is usually because you asked for a document rather than a figure, or because you asked a question that requires the office to do analysis rather than look something up.

Forty minutes, estimating anyway. Assume the request fails. Build an estimate from the outside using what is already public. Annual reports, budget documents, staffing numbers, a known service rate and Little’s Law running backwards.

Ten minutes. Compare the two numbers you now have for the same queue.

Whether to actually send it#

Your choice, and several students do. If you send it, say so in Whose Time It Was and report what came back, including silence. Do not send anything to an individual, and do not send anything on behalf of the course.

Bring#

• A laptop.
• One invisible queue you have a real reason to care about. This session goes much better when the queue matters to you.

What leaves the room#

A drafted request, an outside estimate of the same three quantities with the working shown, and Marta’s note on whether the request would land.