SLOP2516 / Semester 1 2027

Your Call Is Important to Us

Twelve Weeks in the Architecture of Waiting

Everybody waits.
Not everybody waits equally.

One fictional university service desk. Twelve weeks to uncover who its rules favour, whose time they spend, and what you would change.

Enter the Policy Lab Explore the twelve weeks

–

Teaching ends 14 May; feedback and consolidation continue to 28 May. Course calendar.

SlopU / Student services

Office of
Everything

Course admission / retain for reference

SLOP2516

12 weeks / 3 policies / 1 service desk

Please retain your ticket.
You may need it as evidence.
Purpose: a defensible redesign
Course illustration. Not a live queue.

Exhibit 01 / Normal Day

Same arrivals. Different rules.
Different waits.

Eight tickets, one counter, two ways to decide who goes next. Synthetic teaching scenario; every ticket is eventually served.

Arrival order

First come, first served

Mean wait
15.88 min
Longest wait
43 min
Overtaking events
0

Shortest eligible service first

Quick Enquiries

Mean wait
14.38 min
Longest wait
32 min
Overtaking events
1

Overtaking counts each pair in which a later arrival starts service before an earlier arrival. These results describe this fixed scenario, not every queue.

Which outcome would you defend—and whose wait would you have to explain?

Inspect every ticket in the Policy Lab

Your route through the office

Twelve weeks.
Four service windows.

The Office handles enrolment changes, printer-credit disputes and everything in between. Each week adds a memo, ticket log, complaint or failure to the same fictional case.

  1. Window 01
    Weeks 01–03

    Measure

    What does an average hide?

    Observe a queue. Account for the people behind the numbers.

  2. Window 02
    Weeks 04–06

    Choose

    Who gets to go next?

    Compare three rules. Name who gains and who waits longer.

  3. Window 03
    Weeks 07–09

    Communicate

    What can you honestly promise?

    Write the wait sign. Notice the people who leave.

  4. Window 04
    Weeks 10–12

    Defend

    Can your rule survive its worst day?

    Audit the priority lane. Redesign the counter and defend the cost.

Read the lectures, then bring your decision to the weekly Queue Lab.

Three submissions / one accumulating argument

Leave with more than a complaint.

Queue Autopsy

20% / Week 3

Observe one real waiting system. Separate what you saw from what you assumed.

Policy Trial

30% / Week 7

Compare two rules on the same declared data. Defend who goes next and who waits longer.

The Honest Queue

50% / Week 12

Redesign the Office of Everything. Explain its promises, its failures and the cost of your choices.

Before you take a ticket

Bring a question about a queue.

You should be comfortable reading a small dataset. No queueing theory, statistics or systems-design background is assumed.

If you have ever wanted to explain exactly what is wrong with a waiting room, call centre or online queue, start here.

When your number is called

Make a change you can defend.

By week 12, you can name what a waiting system measures, identify its ordering rule, explain who it favours, and propose a specific change—including what that change costs someone else.

Read The Honest Queue brief