ITIL – A Guide to Problem Management (Section 2)

Difference between incident and problem management

The aim of incident management is to restore the service to the user as quickly as possible, often through a workaround, rather than through trying to find a permanent solution which is the aim of problem management.

Incident vs problem

An incident is where an error occurs or something doesn’t work the way it is expected to. This is often referred to as:

• ? a fault

• ? an error

• ? it doesn’t work!

• ? a problem

• ? but the term used is incident.

A problem can be:

• ? the occurrence of the same incident many times
• ? an incident that impacts many users
• ? the result of network diagnostics revealing systems not operating in the expected way

Therefore, a problem can exist without having an immediate impact on the users.

Incidents are usually more visible and the impact on the user is more immediate.

Examples of problems

Technical problems can exist without impacting the user. However, if they are not spotted and dealt with before an incident occurs they can have a big impact on the availability of IT Services.

Problems experienced by users

• ? The printer won’t form feed paper through the printer. The user has to advance the paper by using the form feed button.
• ? Each time a new user logs onto a computer, they have to reinstall the printer driver.
• ? Windows applications crash intermittently without an error message. The computer will restart and work properly afterwards.

Technical problems

• ? Disk space usage is erratic. Sometimes a considerable amount of disk space is available, but at other times little is available. There is no obvious reason and no impact to the users – yet.

• ? A network card is creating lots of unnecessary traffic on the network, which could eventually reduce the bandwidth available, leading to a slow response from network requests.