In IT service management, incidents and problems aren\u2019t independent from each other. They are different dimensions of the same issue \u2013\u00a0opposite\u00a0sides of the same coin. Incidents are the immediate impacts of the issue on normal business\u00a0operations. Incident managers are challenged\u00a0to\u00a0understand the issue, act\u00a0to mitigate\u00a0any\u00a0impact and restore service as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Problems are the long-term impacts of the issue and the risks the issue poses to sustaining normal, future\u00a0business activities. Problem managers are challenged\u00a0to\u00a0investigate\u00a0the root-cause of the issue, related dependencies and environmental factors that could lead to the issue recurring. This investigation\u00a0also\u00a0helps them determine what level of risk (impact and likelihood) is associated with the issue\u00a0if the root cause is not addressed\u00a0and the appropriateness of some sort of\u00a0corrective\u00a0action (long-term fix) vs.\u00a0simply acknowledging and accepting the risk.<\/p>\n
If incident and problem management are both addressing\u00a0performance\u00a0issues,\u00a0then\u00a0why are they separate functions in\u00a0the standard\u00a0ITSM\u00a0paradigm? The answer lies in the\u00a0perceived\u00a0conflicting priorities of these two functions. Incident management is focused on immediate impacts, not what could happen\u00a0in\u00a0the future. Your company needs incident managers to maintain this focus to prevent prolonged business disruptions and\u00a0outages that could cause major damage to productivity or reputation.<\/p>\n
Problem management, in most instances, takes\u00a0time to do thoroughly and correctly, assuming we are dealing with an actual cause-unknown problem. You\u00a0don\u2019t want\u00a0problem managers to rush\u00a0to conclusions\u00a0and miss\u00a0a\u00a0key\u00a0detail.<\/p>\n
Even though incident and problem management are separate functions\u00a0in many IT organizations, it is imperative they share information and insights\u00a0to create an end-to-end information flow.\u00a0Incident managers are on the front lines when the issue is occurring. They see what is\u00a0happening\u00a0with the\u00a0underperforming\u00a0system\u00a0or application. They see the impacts the issue is having on the business. They also see other\u00a0events\u00a0in the environment\u00a0while\u00a0the incident is occurring. This last point is especially important.\u00a0A change, an action or some other occurrence with a service component or dependency causes most incidents (and problems).<\/p>\n
These factors are often\u00a0difficult\u00a0(if not impossible) to identify once service has been restored. As a result, incident managers are the \u201ceyes and ears\u201d of the problem-management function \u2013 collecting valuable information needed to aid in root-cause analysis and problem diagnosis.\u00a0Rather than looking at Incident and Problem Management as two functions, we should look at them as a continuum. Also, it\u2019s a fallacy to believe that there aren\u2019t situations where incident managers (especially major incident managers) need to initiate, and sometimes even lead, some form of root cause analysis, when existing restoration options are ineffective or simply too risky to undertake without knowing cause first. Handing this task off to problem management\u00a0during a live incident can prolong the outage and lead to a lot of \u201cping-pong\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n
Problem managers, on the other hand,\u00a0are the keepers of the \u201cknown-issues list\u201d\u00a0on which\u00a0incident managers rely to diagnose issues and identify potential short-term fixes\u00a0quickly. Even after problem managers identify\u00a0the\u00a0root-cause of an issue and\u00a0remediation steps for a\u00a0long-term fix, considerable time\u00a0is often required\u00a0to implement the\u00a0corrective\u00a0actions and fully resolve the issue. During this period, the company is at risk of the issue recurring and causing further business disruption. It is essential problem managers provide clear instructions to incident managers about what to do if they encounter a recurrence of the issue to avoid\u00a0renewed\u00a0business disruption. If additional data collection is needed during a recurrence,\u00a0then\u00a0incident managers\u00a0must know\u00a0that too, so they can collect the needed data before\u00a0implementing\u00a0corrective action that could potentially destroy or distort the clues needed for problem management.<\/p>\n
Companies that achieve high levels of service excellence know incident and problem managers,\u00a0must\u00a0work together as a team\u00a0as part of an end-to-end support process\u00a0to achieve the shared goal of minimizing business disruptions\u00a0and their impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In IT service management, incidents and problems aren\u2019t independent from each other. They are different dimensions of the same issue \u2013\u00a0opposite\u00a0sides of the same coin. Incidents are the immediate impacts of the issue on normal business\u00a0operations. Incident managers are challenged\u00a0to\u00a0understand the issue, act\u00a0to mitigate\u00a0any\u00a0impact and restore service as quickly as possible. Problems are the long-term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,203],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[83],"class_list":["post-25714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-incident-response","category-service-operations-it-service-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n