Overview
The objective of Problem Management is to investigate workarounds, root causes and solutions to reduce the impact of or eliminate recurring incidents.
Any staff member can report a potential problem in the course of their jobs, by creating a problem ticket assigned to the group believed to be responsible for review of the potential problem. The assigned group’s manager should review the ticket to decide whether or not to log it as a problem.
The Problem Management practices will be incorporated into TeamDynamix on Monday, October 2, 2023. Use the Quick Reference guide below to assist in tracking and resolving Problems.
Details
Problem Management Practice Overview
Problem management is used to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying causes and potential causes of incidents. The video below outlines the thought practice behind our Problem Management practice.
Problem Management in TDX
The video below gives an overview of how to conduct the Problem Management practice inside of the TDX tool.
Terminology
- Problem: A problem is the cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents.
- Work around: Temporary fix that relieves some of the pain of a problem and helps resolve incidents faster.
- Root Cause: The cause of an underlying error (problem).
- Known Error: A known error is a problem that has either an identified root cause, an identified workaround, or both.
Standards
- Log: All problems, regardless of origin, will be logged and updated in TeamDynamix.
- Minimize Impact: Problem descriptions and workarounds must be concise, readable and accessible to incident management staff.
- Close: Problem records will remain open until a permanent solution has been implemented.
Problem Prioritization
- Low: Low impact to one or more services
- Medium: Medium impact to one or more services
- High: High impact to one or more services
- Critical: Caused a service disruption
- Emergency: Caused a major incident
Selecting the Right Status
- New: A potential Problem and responsible group has been identified.
- Assigned: The responsible group has validated that a problem exists, however no effort has been spent on an investigation.
- In Process: Active or passive effort has been expended on the Problem.
- Awaiting Customer Response: Not applicable. Do not use this status.
- Pending: The investigation has been paused to wait for vendor information/upgrades or available resources.
- Resolved: Not applicable. Do not use this status.
- Closed: An implemented solution has verifiably resolved the Problem.
- Canceled: A potential Problem that has been determined to not be an actual Problem.
Problem Management is a Choice: We can choose to stop work on them when the potential value isn’t worth the effort. We can choose to restart our efforts later. If we stop work, change the status to Pending and leave a note as to why.
Important Fields
Note: It’s the responsibility of every agent working on problems to review ticket data for accuracy and to correct it when necessary. It’s important that field data reflects reality and fields are not set to influence metrics.
- Known Error Record: Links to the known error record that has been published.
- Purdue IT Service/Product: Enables matching incidents, SRs and RFCs to problem records.
- Problem Owner: Identifies problems records being actively worked on.
- Work around Identified: If yes, be sure to document it in the Known Error record
- Root Cause Identified: If yes, be sure to document it in the Known Error record
- Solution Identified: If yes, be sure to document & ID a date for implementation in the Known Error record
- Status (not available upon creation): Identifies current activity and effort dedicated to a problem.
Publishing Known Error Records
Create and publish a known error record any time there is information of use to the customer or staff working incidents.
You can use the "Known Error" template (Word doc) for guidance on the information to include in a Known Error. To submit the problem record, click the "Purdue IT Request" button and attach the template to your request.
Note: Each problem record should have no more than one known error record.
Questions?: Submit a question to the IT Service Management Office by clicking the "Purdue IT Request" button and starting a ticket.