ITIL – A Guide to Problem Management (Section 3)

Benefits of problem management

The benefits of taking a formal approach to problem management include the following:

• ?Improved quality of the IT service. A high quality, reliable service is good for the business/organisation.
• ??Incident volume reduction. Problem management is instrumental in reducing the number of incidents that interrupt the business/organisation every day.
• ??Permanent solutions. There will be a gradual reduction in the number and impact of problems and known errors as those that are resolved stay resolved.
• ??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 productivity.
• ??A better first time fix rate at the Service Desk. Problem management enables the Service Desk to know how to deal with problems and incidents that have previously been resolved and documented.

What could affect the benefits of problem management?

The benefits of problem management can be weakened by:

• ??the absence of a good incident control process, and, therefore, the absence of detailed data on incidents (necessary for the correct identification of problems).
• ??the failure to link incident records with problem/error records.
• ??a lack of management or leadership commitment, so that support staff (usually also involved with reactive incident control activities) cannot allocate sufficient time to structural problem solving activities.
• ??the role of the Service Desk (all incident reports must come through the Service Desk and difficulties may arise if the Service Desk is dealing with multiple reports of incidents and the technician is not fully aware of the extent of the problem).
• ??a failure to set aside time to build and update the call log or incident sheets which will restrict the delivery of benefits.
• ??an inability to determine accurately the impact on the business/organisation of incidents and problems; consequently the critical incidents and problems are not given the correct priority.

How problem management works

Problem management works by using analysis techniques to identify the cause of the problem. incident management is not usually concerned with the cause, only the cure: restoration of service. Problem management, therefore, takes longer and should be done once the urgency of the incident has been dealt with: for example, removing a faulty computer and replacing it with a working computer, takes the urgency away and leaves the faulty computer ready for diagnostics.

Problem management can take time. It is important to set time limits or the cost of resolution can become expensive.

To achieve its goal, problem management aims to:

• ??identify the root cause – problem control
• ??initiate actions to improve and correct the situation – error control

Error control

Error control covers the processes involved in successful correction of known errors. The objective is to remove equipment with known errors that affects the IT infrastructure to prevent the recurrence of incidents.

Error control activities can be reactive and proactive. Reactive activities include:

• ??identification of known errors through incident management
• ??implementing a workaround

Proactive activities include:

• ??finding a solution to a recurring problem
• ??creating a solution
• ??including the solution in the known errors’ database