The graphic on the left describes the difference between an incident and a problem as defined in ITIL. Incidents have to be dealt with right now and have impact on the business. Problems are the root causes of the incidents.
The first thing I emphasize to my customers when speaking with them about standing up a problem management function or team is the importance of clean, consistent, accurate historical and chronological data. Problem management turns data into proposed solutions and then implements those solutions. The quality of the data determines the incident and problem management processes.
The best way to ensure that there is good data is to establish standardized work instructions that ensure that the data is input and is input in an organized and repeatable manner. The following methodology is what I recommend
- Identify are the current data input policies or procedures?
- Create a problem statement (What is the opportunity?)
- Create a data policy (What data must be in an incident or Problem record?)
- Create simple steps or checklist
One of my customers established a set of incident record data input policies to base their work instructions on.
- Main issue
- Root cause/secondary affects
- Affected service (ex. Email)
- Affected technology (ex. Exchange)
- Symptoms/impact (number of users)
- Incident Age (Date/Time)
Try these simple steps to establish your data rules
Next week I will build on this as we discuss Pareto charts.