Overview

Problem Management manages the lifecycle of all Problems.  The primary objective of Problem Management are to prevent Incidents from happening, and to minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented.  Proactive Problem Management analyzes Incident Records, and uses collected by other IT Service Management processes to identify trends or significant problems.  Problem Management includes seven sub-processes:

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• Proactive Problem Identification - proactively identifying and solving Problems and/or providing suitable workarounds before (further) Incidents recur.
• Problem Categorization & Prioritization - record and prioritize the Problems in order to facilitate a swift and effective resolutions.
• Problem Diagnosis & Resolution - identify the underlying root cause of a Problem and initiate Problem solution.  If possible, a temporary Workaround is supplied.
• Problem & Error Control - constantly monitor outstanding Problems so that where necessary corrective measures may be introduced.
• Major Problem Review - review the resolution of a Problem in order to prevent recurrence and learn any lessons for the future.
• Problem Management Reporting - ensure that the other Service Management processes are informed of outstanding Problems, their processing-status and existing Workarounds.

“The goal of Incident Management is to fix it fast. The goal of Problem Management is to find the root cause and fix it permanently.” -Peter Stampfer, Problem Manager.

Governance