How can you identify recurring issues in your IT systems?

1 Define what counts as a recurring issue

A recurring issue is a problem that occurs repeatedly in your IT systems, either in the same or different components, and has a negative impact on your service quality or performance. A recurring issue may have different symptoms, root causes, or solutions, but it shares a common pattern or theme that indicates a systemic or chronic issue. To identify recurring issues, you need to define what counts as a recurring issue for your IT systems, based on your business goals, service level agreements, and customer expectations.

2 Track and analyze your incidents

One of the main sources of information for identifying recurring issues is your incident management system, where you record, classify, and resolve the incidents that affect your IT systems. By tracking and analyzing your incidents, you can identify patterns, trends, and correlations that reveal recurring issues. For example, you can use metrics such as incident frequency, duration, severity, and resolution time to measure the impact and recurrence of issues. You can also use tools such as Pareto charts, histograms, or heat maps to visualize and compare the distribution and frequency of issues across your IT systems.

3 Conduct root cause analysis

Another way to identify recurring issues is to conduct root cause analysis (RCA) for the incidents that affect your IT systems. RCA is a process of finding and eliminating the underlying causes of problems, rather than just fixing the symptoms. By conducting RCA, you can identify the factors and conditions that contribute to recurring issues, such as faulty hardware, misconfigured software, human error, or external threats. You can also use techniques such as the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, or fault tree analysis to help you perform RCA and find the root causes of issues.

4 Collect and review feedback

A third way to identify recurring issues is to collect and review feedback from your users and customers who interact with your IT systems. Feedback can provide valuable insights into the user experience, satisfaction, and expectations of your IT systems, as well as the issues and challenges they face. By collecting and reviewing feedback, you can identify recurring issues that may not be captured by your incident management system or RCA, such as usability issues, performance issues, or feature requests. You can use methods such as surveys, interviews, or focus groups to collect feedback, and tools such as sentiment analysis, text mining, or NPS to analyze feedback.

5 Implement problem management

The final way to identify recurring issues is to implement problem management, which is a process of proactively preventing and resolving the problems that cause recurring issues in your IT systems. Problem management involves identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and documenting the problems that affect your IT systems, and implementing changes or improvements to eliminate or reduce them. By implementing problem management, you can identify recurring issues before they become incidents, and improve your IT system reliability, availability, and performance.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?