PROCESS FACTSHEET
PROBLEM MANAGEMENT
WHY:
The fact that computerisation is now a pervasive element of most organisations infrastructure has lead
to the requirement to fully optimise their use.
End users will face issues in their use of computer systems. In ITIL terms we refer to these as
incidents. A “pattern” of incidents is a “problem”. Failure to halt the recurrence of incidents leads to
lost time and frustrated users. Users who have to ask for the same issue to be fixed day after day will
quite rightly lose their patience.
Effective problem management halts the recurrence of incidents and has benefits to the individual and
the organisation as a whole.
GOAL: The goal of Problem Management is to minimise the adverse
impact of Incidents and Problems on the business that are caused by
errors within the IT Infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of
Incidents related to these errors.
ACTIVITIES:
Problem = Unknown underlying cause of incident (s)
Known Error = Known underlying cause of incident (s)
The major activities of Problem Management are:
Problem control
Error control
The proactive prevention of Problems
Identifying trends
Obtaining management information from Problem Management data
The completion of major Problem reviews.
Problem control:
Identifying the real underlying causes.
Problem identification and recording (link to Incident Management)
Problem classification - in terms of the impact on the business
Problem investigation and diagnosis (link to all other ITIL processes)
CLOSE problem before going into error control
Error control:
Identify and register Known Errors
Assess Known Errors and identify possible solutions (if necessary!)
Raise RFC to remove Known Errors affecting the IT infrastructure to prevent any
recurrence of Incidents (link to Change Management)
Copyright The Art of Service 2002
GPO Box 2673, Brisbane QLD 4001, Email: service@[Link] , web: [Link] , OTC: [Link]
Phone: 1300 13 44 99. See also: [Link]
PROCESS FACTSHEET
Proactive Problem Management
Identifying and resolving Problems and Known Errors before Incidents occur.
Trend analysis
Targeting of preventive action.
Trend Analysis
Providing management information
Major Problem reviews
On completion of the resolution of every major Problem, Problem Management should
complete a major Problem review.
What was done right
What was done wrong
What could be done better next time
How to prevent the Problem from happening again.
RESULTS:
Accurate Work Around Database
Accurate overview of Know Errors
Insight in Weak areas in the IT Infrastructure
More pro-active service Support
Bridging Incident Management and Change Management
Decrease in support cost because of better IT staff allocation
COST:
Personnel – Support staff (Set-up and ongoing)
Accommodation – Physical location (Set-up and ongoing)
Software – Tools (Set-up and ongoing)
Hardware – Infrastructure (Set-up)
Education – Training (Set-up and ongoing)
Procedures – external consultants etc (Set-up)
BENEFITS:
Improved IT service quality. Problem Management helps generate a cycle of
rapidly increasing IT service quality. High-quality reliable service is good for the
business users of IT, and good for the productivity and moral of the IT service
providers.
Incident volume reduction. Problem Management is instrumental in reducing
the number of Incidents that interrupt the conduct of business.
Permanent solutions. There will be a gradual reduction in the number of and
impact of Problems and Known Errors (once fixed stays fixed)
Improved organisational learning. The Problem Management process is based
on the concept of learning from past experience. The process provides the
historical data to identify trends and the means of preventing failures and of
reducing the impact of failures, resulting in improved User productivity.
Better first-time fix rate at the Service Desk. Problem Management enables a
better first time fix rate of Incidents at the Service Desk, achieved via the capture,
retention and availability of Incident resolution and Work-around data within a
knowledge database available to the Service Desk.
Copyright The Art of Service 2002
GPO Box 2673, Brisbane QLD 4001, Email: service@[Link] , web: [Link] , OTC: [Link]
Phone: 1300 13 44 99. See also: [Link]