Problem Management Overview

ITIL

Problem Management

Contents

Roles

Process

Policy

Purpose of Problem Management

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Contents

Purpose of Problem Management

Terms (Service Operations)

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Something is broken or about to break.

Repair as quickly as possible.

Open incidents are measured against SLAs.

Incident 2

Underlying “root-cause.”

Remains open until underlying issue is

resolved.

Open Problems are not measured against SLAs.

Creates “work-around.”

Problem3

Routine pleas for help – but nothing is broken.

These include items like “can you tell me Joe

Blow’s phone number”, “can you unlock my

account”, and “will you reset my password.”

Service Request

Problem Guidelines

There is no time SLA target associated with problem resolution. Resolution of the root cause of a problem may take hours or days or even years

Problems do not need prior approvals to be worked and resolved. They only need to be prioritised to work the most critical problems first

If it appears that root cause identification and resolution are not readily apparent and the impact is medium or high, effort should be focused first on providing a suitable documented work around

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Problem Prioritisation

Problem PriorityImpact: People & ServiceSeverity: Time

Severity3-Low

User cannot perform a portion of their duties.

2-MediumUser cannot perform critical time sensitive functions

1-HighMajor portion of a critical service is unavailable

Impact

3-Low

One or two personnel Degraded Service Levels but still

processing within SLA constraints 3-Low 3-Low 2-Medium

2-Medium

Multiple personnel in one physical location

Degraded Service Levels at or below SLA constraints

Cause of problem falls across multiple functional areas

2-Medium

2-Medium 1-High

1-High

All users of a specific service Personnel from multiple agencies are

affected Public facing service is unavailable Any item listed in the Crisis Response

tables

1-High 1-High 1-High

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Problems use the same prioritisation as incidents. To prioritise, the impact and severity must be assessed.

Contents

Roles

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Roles

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 Problem Reporter Anyone can request a problem case to be opened The typical sources for problems are the Service Desk, Service

Provider Groups, and proactive problem management through Quality Assurance

Roles

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Service Desk Ensure that all problems received/ identified by the Service Desk

are recorded in your ITSM software Delegates responsibility by assigning problems to the

appropriate provider group for resolution based upon the categorisation rules

Performs post-resolution customer review to ensure that all work services are functioning properly

Quality Assurance Owns all reported problems Prepare reports showing statistics of problems resolved /

unresolved

Roles

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Service Provider 2nd Line Groups Composed of technical and functional staff involved in

supporting services Perform root cause analysis of the problem and develop

potential solutions Test potential solutions and develop implementation plan

 Service Provider 3nd Line Groups Composed of external technical staff involved in supporting

services Perform root cause analysis of the problem and develop

potential solutions Test potential solutions and assist in development of

implementation plan

Contents

Process

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Process Flow

Process Flow - Identification

Anyone within 1st, 2nd 3rd line can request that a problem record be opened

All initial information relative to a problem will be logged, especially related incidents

Before continuing, the Service Desk will verify the related service having the issue and correlate it with an existing service and SLA

After problem verification, the Service Desk will attempt to establish urgency and impact which define priority.

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Process Flow – Analyze & Resolve

Primary root cause analysis will be performed by the Service Provider Group

As soon as the problem is clearly documented with identifying symptoms, linked to the incident, a known error record can be created within the ITSM software so that if additional incidents occur, they can be related to the existing problem

Once the solution is determined, it should be implemented following the Change Management Process

Once the solution is implemented and verified, the problem record may be closed

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Contents

Policy

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Problem Policy

Problems must be logged with the Service Desk before they are worked on

There is no SLA target date connected to problem resolution (e.g. a start and complete by date)

If a work around for the problem has been discovered, it should be provided to the Service Desk and logged into the ITSM software and a known error recorded

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