Process 1: Document the Problem

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The first process in Problem Management is to thoroughly document the problem. This includes classifying and prioritizing the problem.

 

Figure 3. Document the problem

Activities: Document the Problem

A problem is any scenario that threatens the reliability or availability of a service or system. Problems may arise from many sources and can be triggered by many events. For a problem to qualify for Problem Management, however, there must be value in documenting the problem by doing research on it and attempting to locate and resolve its root cause. In addition, the value of removing the problem from the environment should be greater than the effort and cost to do so.

Record keeping is critical to Problem Management. If data about the problem is lost, duplicated, or incorrectly recorded, Problem Management cannot function correctly. The success of the process depends on having good data to analyze and research.

** Note**   It is important to keep in mind that if a service or system is interrupted, this is considered an incident and not a problem. Be very careful not to get in the way of the service resumption activity of incident resolution, which is described in the Customer Service SMF.

The following table lists the activities involved in documenting a problem. These include:

  • Creating a problem record.
  • Classifying the problem.
  • Prioritizing the problem.

Table 4. Activities and Considerations for Documenting the Problem

Activities

Considerations

Create a problem record

Key questions:

  • What are the symptoms of the problem?
  • Is there an existing problem record with the same symptoms?
  • Has a known error record already been created?

Inputs:

  • Incident record
  • Events from System Center Operations Manager
  • Trends discovered from operational data

Output:

  • A record that tracks the symptoms and scenario surrounding the observation of the problem

Best practices:

  • Detailed data is important. A Problem Management tracking system should allow users to attach or link to logs, screenshots, dump files, and other diagnostic data.
  • Tight integration between the customer service tracking system and the Problem Management tracking system is very beneficial. Whenever a problem record is created as the result of a Help request, the two should be linked together for future analysis and review.

Classify the problem

Key Questions:

  • What are the available classifications?
  • Are there applicable sub-classifications?
  • What is the best-fit classification to select?

Inputs:

  • Working knowledge of the environment
  • IT Service Catalog

Outputs:

  • Metadata added to the problem record to help associate it with other data previously collected
  • Data to help properly document information coming out of Problem Management to make it usable by the customer service process

Best practices:

  • Classification should be a best-fit approach.
  • It is important to offer an “unknown” option. If the problem does not fit into an existing classification, a new classification might be required. Users of the Problem Management tracking system should not be forced to select an incorrect class, as this can skew the data.

Prioritize the problem

Key questions:

  • Is there a Help request from the customer service tracking system associated with this problem?
  • How many people does, or could, this problem affect?
  • How significant is, or would be, the impact to important business processes?
  • Is this an obvious one-time occurrence?
  • What is the criticality of the business process being affected?
  • What SLAs are in place?
  • What groups of people are affected: back-office support, external customers, or upper management?

Inputs:

  • Data from the problem record
  • Related Help requests
  • Operational data and evidence
  • IT Service Catalog

Outputs:

  • A determination of the priority of this problem over others
  • A determination of whether this problem should be deferred to a later time

Best practice:

  • It is important to prioritize consistently. Building a matrix into the Problem Management tracking system can help guide users to setting meaningful priorities.

This accelerator is part of a larger series of tools and guidance from Solution Accelerators.
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