About Problem Management

The Problem Management process looks at the root causes of the problems that cause multiple incidents. Problem Management then seeks to take actions to fix the situation and prevent it from recurring. The goal of the process is to minimize the effect of incidents and problems on the business.
To manage problems successfully, you need the ability to perform the following actions:
  • Track problems.
  • Diagnose the problems.
  • Fix the problems through change requests.
  • Publish known errors to help with future resolutions.
Part of the Problem Management process is to group related incidents for additional analysis and discovery of root causes. This analysis and discovery lets Problem Management take Incident Management a step further. Incident Management seeks to resolve the single issue at hand, so that a user can get up and running again. Problem Management goes deeper and seeks to take the actions that prevent that issue from happening again. When the problem is identified, a change request can be created or a knowledge base article can be requested.
In general, Problem Management deals with the issues that multiple users have encountered. For example, multiple users may experience an issue with a certain software program. Each of these issues can be resolved individually through the Incident Management process. However, the Problem Management process might suggest a Service Pack update for all users of that software. This solution would solve the individual incidents and prevent other users from encountering the issue and creating new incidents.
Problem Management includes the following key features:
  • The ability to group incidents so that the root cause that is common to all the incidents can be analyzed.
    The information in the problem request can be forwarded for use in a change request, or sent back to support technicians as a resolution.
  • One notification can be sent for all the incidents that are associated with the problem.
  • The knowledge base can be used as part of a resolution for a problem, and problems can provide information for the knowledge base.
The Problem Management process provides information to the other ServiceDesk processes as follows:
  • Obtains the initial context of a problem from the Incident Management process.
  • Provides the context that is related to the problem to assist in the decision making during the Change Management process.
  • Provides the documentation from problems to the knowledge base.