Technical depth
What does technical depth mean in support work?
Naming the actual mechanism: the job, the query, the field, the service. "The export was broken and now works" is not depth however confidently it is written. Depth is scored on whether the account would let somebody else find the same thing, not on vocabulary.
- Whether the account names actual mechanisms - the job, the query, the field, the service - or gestures at them. "The export was broken and now works" is not depth however confidently it is written.
- One of the 11 dimensions every ticket here is graded against
What a weak answer looks like
The ways this is usually lost
Named failures rather than general warnings, because a warning nobody can recognise in their own work changes nothing.
Abstractions standing in for mechanisms: "a sync issue", "a permissions thing", "a glitch".
Technical words used as decoration, with no specific component named.
An account that cannot be checked because nothing in it points at anything.
What a strong one looks like
What the grader is actually looking for
The same ticket, done in the way that scores.
The specific thing named - which job, which field, which request - so somebody could go and look.
The connection drawn between the mechanism and the symptom the customer saw.
Uncertainty marked as uncertainty, which is deeper than a confident account that nothing supports.
Questions
Asked about this one
Does technical depth mean using more technical language?
No. Jargon with nothing specific behind it scores lower than plain language naming the exact component. The question is whether somebody else could follow the account to the same place.
How can a beginner show depth?
By being specific about what they actually looked at and precise about what they did not establish. Naming the one log line you checked is depth. Summarising a system you did not inspect is not, however fluent it reads.
See this scored on a real ticket: work one free, read a worked ticket, or see what a graded record shows. Every guide is listed on the guides index, and if something here is wrong or unclear, tell us.