Problem Management

Problem Management is a deeper look into the causes of incidents. Problem Management seeks to find a resolution to the root cause of a problem to minimize or prevent the recurrence of incidents caused by the problem. It seeks to identify known errors and define a resolution. This information can prevent service disruption in the future. Proactive Problem Management helps your team decrease the number of incidents as trends are analyzed and permanent fixes are implemented.

Problem Management works together with Incident Management and Change Management to ensure that IT service availability and quality are increased. As permanent resolutions are found to fix known errors, Requests for Change (RFCs) can be raised to make alterations to your IT process, applications, or infrastructure. As these RFCs are implemented to resolve problems, related incidents are less likely to occur.

Problems can be related to incidents, changes, or solutions, giving your support desk the information that they need when they encounter similar issues. Known errors and their resolutions are added to the Knowledge Center, where they can be accessed by the support team to help identify permanent solutions and speed up the resolution time for similar incidents. This results in less downtime and less disruption to business critical systems.

The following sections describe the Problem Management application:

• Problem Management Overview
• Problem Management Roles