Problem Management and Incident Management

Definition of Problem Management and Incident Management

Problem and Incident Management aim to minimize business disruption by restoring service operations to agreed levels as soon as possible after an incident is noted. However, Problem Management primarily deals with resolving the underlying cause of the incident. An incident is any event that is not part of the standard operation of an IT service that causes, or may cause, an interruption in, or a reduction of, service. In addition, Incident Management involves eliminating, or minimizing, the negative impact of incidents on business. Incident Management often relies upon temporary workarounds to ensure services are up and running while the incident is investigated and a permanent problem elimination fix put in place.

Incident Management notification tends to come from users, but IT detection systems can also ring incident alarms. Incident service requests are formally managed through a staged process from inception to conclusion. Typically, once an incident is noted, a request for change is issued, the problem is investigated and resolved, and the incident is closed. Problem Management requires the accurate and comprehensive recording of incidents to identify and eliminate underlying causes.

Implications for Business

The purpose of Problem and Incident Management is to ensure that staff and customers are able to resume business as quickly as possible, following a disruption to an IT service, while minimizing the adverse impact of an incident on business operation.

As IT becomes the lifeblood of organizations, the service desk is often seen as the front door into an organization. It provides a vital point of contact between external or internal customers and the IT operations, including the ability to process incidents, problems, enquiries, change and service requests, and IT service management processes, such as Configuration Management.

How HelpSTAR Helps

HelpSTAR supports Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Problem and Incident Management for best practices processes to ensure that incidents cause minimal business disruptions and that root causes of incidents are identified and solved to minimize overall incidents.

By allowing incidents to be forwarded manually or automatically to a skill-based queue where they can be addressed by the first available technician with the required technical skills, HelpSTAR helps keep the lid on problems caused by incidents. Its one thing to forward incidents to a queue, another to prioritize incidents based on business importance and business rules, as HelpSTAR allows users to do. That way, priority incidents—those that could cause the most harm to the business—are handled in priority sequence.

HelpSTAR makes it easy for end users to submit incident reports by email or the HelpSTAR web portal, to submit changes requests, and to monitor the status of incident action. HelpSTAR also enables support staff to report underlying problems so they can be resolved, eliminating future incidents based on the same issue. However, should a problem reoccur, a quick trip to the HelpSTAR Knowledge Management database will let authorized staff see what action was taken previously to resolve it so the incident can be quickly taken care of.

HelpSTAR’s Problem and Incident Management procedure ensure that the IT systems is kept running at optimum efficiency so that the organization can focus on supporting its customers.