Hi everyone – I’ve started a new newsletter called Wrangle It that’s all about modern insights for overworked ops teams. I’ve added you to the list because we’re connected in one way or another – working together, Wrangle user, LinkedIn, etc.
The unsubscribe URL is at the bottom of this email if you don’t want to hear from me going forward.
I’ve spent my entire career building businesses and helping ops teams and what I keep hearing from ops leaders (IT, HR, RevOps, CX, etc.) is the same:
“We’re drowning in requests, but management doesn’t realize it.”
Untracked work is an iceberg – limited visibility, but potentially a big problem.
Thanks for reading.
Adam Smith
CEO & Founder, Wrangle
PS: We’ll be in San Francisco for Dreamforce Oct 13-16. Let’s meet up!
Key Takeaways
Most of your team’s real work never shows up in the ticketing system.
DMs and Slack threads = hidden queues. They don’t get logged, reported, or valued.
Leadership only sees the tip of the iceberg, which makes your workload and impact look smaller than it is.
Surfacing invisible work is the first step to proving your value.
The right tools don’t just track it — they make it visible, human, and reportable.
The Iceberg of Untracked Work
Every IT or HR team I talk to says the same thing:
“According to the ticketing portal, we’re not that busy. But we feel overwhelmed.”
They’re right. Here’s what’s happening:
Above the waterline: the official tickets logged in Jira, Zendesk, or whatever portal leadership paid too much for. That’s what shows up in dashboards.
Below the waterline: the constant stream of DMs, side threads, “quick asks,” and shoulder taps and follow ups that never make it into the system.
The stuff below the waterline is five times bigger than what’s above it. But it’s invisible to leadership.
In other words, the more you help people in Slack, the less leadership sees your workload. The better you are, the more invisible you become.
It’s a brutal cycle. You’re solving problems all day, but when headcount pressure or AI outsourcing comes knocking, your numbers don’t protect you.
Why It Matters
Ops teams are shrinking. Five years ago, the ratio was ~1 IT pro per 100 employees. Now? One for every 250. Same volume, fewer hands.
Context lives in chat. Who approved the discount? Why did HR make that exception? Those answers live in Slack threads, not in the portal.
AI is coming. If leadership thinks you’re not doing much, they’ll happily test an MSP or chatbot in your place.
You don’t just need to solve tickets. You need to show proof of impact.
Said another way: if leadership can’t see your workload, it doesn’t count.
What does? Proof. Volume. Response times. Trends over time.
The teams that thrive aren’t just fast, they’re visible. And visibility starts with surfacing the iceberg below the waterline.
3 Ways to Surface the Work Below the Waterline
Tag the quick asks. Create a simple Slack emoji (📥 or 🐙) for “needs tracking.” Every time someone handles a DM or side-thread, drop the tag. It’s a lightweight way to flag invisible work.
Weekly “shadow queue” check. Once a week, ask your team: “What did you solve this week that never became a ticket?” Collect the answers in a shared doc or channel. Patterns emerge fast.
Automate the swivel. Use a tool (yes, Wrangle, or even a Zapier hack) to turn Slack messages into tickets automatically…and have AI help answer the questions for you.. The less friction, the more invisible work gets surfaced.
Make Invisible Work Visible
Wrangle turns any DM or thread into a trackable ticket — no portals required.
That means your Slack conversations become visible, reportable, and countable. Instead of showing 40 tickets in the portal, Wrangle reveals the 200 you actually handled — proof that protects headcount and sanity.
Ops News & Notes
IT staffing benchmarks published for 2024/25. Avasant’s new IT Spending & Staffing Benchmarks report offers up-to-date ratios by company size and industry—helpful for seeing if your team is over- or under-resourced. Avasant+1
Typical IT-staffing ratios vary wildly by org size. For example, surveys show 1:18 for under-500-employee orgs, but ratios approach 1:40+ for very large enterprises. Workforce.com