3

I'm not looking for a technical term, but a more polite way of saying that the user's request is a lower priority and we may or may not get to it once higher priority issues are cleared out. The company owner and top management will see these statuses, so they shouldn't be slang.

For purposes of understanding what I am looking for, here are some other "statuses" I am using (but can be changed to match the tone of this status if necessary):

  • New
  • Being Investigated
  • Being Worked
  • Ready for Testing
  • Completed

If necessary, we may end up with multiple statuses, one which indicates that it should be worked soon, and one or more others which indicate that it may be awhile or it may never actually get done.

I've looked at various websites and considered terms like

  • queued (promises completion, and may or may not be easily known to Americans)
  • waiting for resources (true, but very technical)
  • parked (to much slang)
  • pending (pending what?)

But none of them really convey the politeness of the possibility that we may or may not get to this in the near future.

Feel free to ask for any clarifications, or to edit this to make it more appropriate for this site (I usually posted on Stack Overflow, but since I don't want a technical term, I thought all of you would do a better job of it).

UPDATE: added the adjective "short" to the title because that is what I really want.

| improve this question | |
  • Would the following do? This matter is not urgent enough or we're tending to more serious matters – vickyace Mar 20 '17 at 13:51
  • @vickyace You got the meaning, but I'd like it shorter. I'm adding the adjective "short" to the title (because while I give examples in the question body, but I should have asked for a word or short phrase). Thanks for trying, though, as it pointed out my title could have been better. – Guy Schalnat Mar 20 '17 at 14:02
  • 1
    What about "Low Priority"? It is concise and generally carries the connotation that it will not happen until the priority is raised. – JosiahDaniels Mar 20 '17 at 14:06
  • @JosiahDaniels The problem with "Low Priority" is that it could be a higher priority then "Low" but still may be stuck in the queue for awhile due to having really high priority items being worked. "Lower Priority" is a bit more accurate, but lower than what? It's also not as polite as I would prefer. – Guy Schalnat Mar 20 '17 at 14:10
  • 1
    Unless you're talking about emergency or perhaps medical work, you're facing an up-hill battle on appearing to be polite when you're trying to tell someone that their job is of such low priority that all of your staff have 'better' things to do. In that case, you're probably better off showing them objectively where they stand (e.g. "You're 25th in the queue. The wait time is currently 30 minutes."). – Lawrence Mar 20 '17 at 14:33
5

You should consider deferred.

ODO:

defer VERB

[WITH OBJECT]
1 Put off (an action or event) to a later time; postpone.

‘Laois County Council have deferred all meetings of Laois County Council until further notice.’

Also, under consideration.

dictionary.com:

under consideration
Being thought about or discussed, as in Your application is under consideration; we'll let you know next week.

| improve this answer | |
  • Deferred isn't bad. I was hoping for something a little more polite / less harsh though. – Guy Schalnat Mar 20 '17 at 14:11
2

What about Agile terminology? I think it is sufficiently well known to be no longer niche or technical.

What is a product backlog?
A product backlog is a prioritized list of work for the development team that is derived from the roadmap and its requirements. The most important items are shown at the top of the product backlog so the team knows what to deliver first. The development team doesn't work through the backlog at the product owner's pace and the product owner isn't pushing work to the development team. Instead, the development team pulls work from the product backlog as there is capacity for it, either continually (kanban) or by iteration (scrum).
- https://www.atlassian.com/agile/backlogs

| improve this answer | |

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.