Problem Management Revue

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Problem Management Revue

• Strategic Process Planning
• and Integration Management (SPPIM)
• Sue Silkey, Thelma Simons
• and Gail Schaplowsky

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Best Practices

• Best practices provide a guide to help design IT
  management processes that increase the overall
  efficiency, reduce costs and align IT with
  business needs.
• ITIL asks

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How ITIL best practices can help

• Faster incident recovery
• Fewer unplanned outages
• Better communication with users
• Information that enables better informed
  management decisions

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Problem Management

• Goal
• To minimize the adverse impact of incidents and
  problems that are caused by errors in the IT
  Infrastructure
• Benefits
• Detection of the underlying causes of a recurring
  Incident and subsequent resolution and prevention
• Reduce both the number and severity of Incidents
  and Problems on the business
• Incident volume reduction

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Terms

• Incident something that used to work doesnt
  work now.
• Major Incident an Incident with a high impact
  on the campus community, and which requires a
  response above and beyond that given to normal
  incidents.
• Workaround Method of avoiding an incident or
  problem--a temporary fix to get the customer back
  up and running.

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Terms

• Problem A condition identified by multiple
  incidents exhibiting common symptoms, or from one
  single significant incident, indicative of a
  single error, for which the cause is unknown.
• Root cause the underlying cause of the problem.
• Known error A condition identified by
  successful diagnosis of the root cause of a
  problem, when it is confirmed which Configuration
  Item is at fault and a workaround has been
  identified.

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Problem Solving Flow
Does the damn thing work?
NO
YES
Dont mess with it
Did you mess with it?
YES
You Idiot!
YES
Does anyone Know?
NO
NO
Will you catch Hell?
You Poor Soul
YES
Hide it
NO
Can you blame Someone else?
NO
Ditch it
YES
No Problem!
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Our process

• Problem identification
• Problem Manager or Service Owner
• Multiple incidents exhibiting common symptoms
• Or a single significant incident for which the
  cause is unknown.
• Assemble problem team
• Identify who needs to be involved
• Ask all managers for input about possible related
  issues
• Schedule meeting(s)
• Follow Kepner-Tregoe Problem Analysis model to
  identify root cause

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Kepner-Tregoe

• Define the problem
• What service is affected and how.
• Describe the problem
• Review associated incidents.
• Location. Where does the problem occur?
• Time. When did the problem start to occur? How
  frequently?
• Size. How many people, servers, and/or services
  are affected?
• Establish possible causes
• What do we know so far?
• Were there any related changes requests that
  could be the cause?
• What attempts have been made to resolve the
  problem?

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Kepner-Tregoe

• Test the most probable cause
• Who can test the probable cause?
• How will we know if it is successful?
• Verify the true cause
• Who will verify the problem has been resolved?
• How will it be verified?

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Problem Management

• How we implemented
• Created an interim process
• Current status
• Still using interim process
• Plan to formalize process and get official
  approval

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A day in the lifeof Problem Management

• Our players
• Starlett (Service Owner) Gail Schaplowsky
• Captain Brett Paininthe Butler (Problem Manager)
  Bill Farris
• Sissy (Frantic user) Thelma Simons
• Melody (Incredibly kind and patient CSC staff
  person) Sue Silkey
• Brashley Bilkes (Reliable Support Staff) Mike
  Wright
• Narrarator (and sound effects) Travis Marvin
• Audience participation

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Terra-byte Plantation Situation Room
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Kudos and apologies

• Thanks to our players
• Gail Schaplowsky
• Bill Farris
• Sue Silkey
• Mike Wright
• Travis Marvin
• Thelma Simons
• And apologies to
• Margaret Mitchell
• Carol Burnett
• Those youngsters who havent seen GWTW

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Hope you had fun and

• Learned
• The difference between an Incident, a Major
  Incident and a Problem
• How Problem Management can help improve our
  services
• That the goal of Problem Management is to find
  the root cause
• A little about the process we follow

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Questions?

• More information at SPPIM (PSMO) website
• www.technology.ku.edu/psmo

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