Pgs problem management assessment 022509

February 25, 2009 1 of 15
For information on how to use please go to www.pointguardsolutions.com, or email
jc@pointguardsolutions.com
Service Operations
Process Assessment
Problem Management Best Practices

1. Contents
Table of Contents
1. Contents.......................................................................................................................2
1.1 Purpose ................................................................................................................3
1.2 Document History................................................................................................3
2 Assessment Overview..................................................................................................4
2.1 Document Standard .............................................................................................4
2.2 Questionnaire Instructions...................................................................................4
2.3 Tools Inventory and Assessment Instructions.....................................................5
2.4 Roles and Responsibilities Instructions...............................................................5
3 Service Support Assessment........................................................................................5
3.1 Problem Management..........................................................................................5
3.1.1 Overview .....................................................................................................5
3.1.2 Questionnaire...............................................................................................7
3.1.3 Tools Inventory and Assessment...............................................................14
3.1.4 Roles and Responsibilities.........................................................................14

1.1 Purpose
This document is intended to outline a standard practice for a Capability Maturity Model
Assessment of ITIL Service Support and Service Delivery Best Practices.
Proposed Project Name: CMM ITIL Problem Management Assessment
Issued By/Department:
Primary Sales Contact:
Primary Technical Contact:
Date:
1.2 Document History
Revision History
Name Date Version Description Sign
Off

2 Assessment Overview
2.1 Document Standard
The assessment will be performed using a hybrid of the Capability Maturity Model for
Service Management and the ITIL Best Practices for Service Support and Service
Delivery. The overall structure of the effort will come from the ITIL best practices of the
IT Service Management definition. Rankings within each area will conform to a modified
version of the CMM scoring. This modified version provides a greater degree of
granularity in evaluating the various factors involved in each service area, and has its
basis in the ITIL standard.
2.2 Questionnaire Instructions
The following answers are possible:
• Answer Yes always if:
The activity is (almost) always performed. If you answer yes always please
indicate which role or function is responsible for conducting the activity.
• Answer Not always if:
The activity is performed sometimes, or not completely. The activity may be
performed, but not according to a documented procedure, or may be omitted
under difficult circumstances.
Please indicate why the activity is not consistently performed.
• Answer Never if:
The activity is never or hardly ever performed.
• Answer Don't know if:
You are unsure what the activity entails, or you have insufficient knowledge to
answer the question.
Please answer all questions. Please add comments to explain and motivate your
answer.
In those cases where questions refer to documented processes and procedures,
references to those documents should be captured. Where appropriate, copies of
documents should be included.

2.3 Tools Inventory and Assessment Instructions
For each tool in use within a particular service area, the following information should be
cataloged:
• What is the product name and version?
• What is the intended purpose? What need is the tool designed to fill?
• Does the tool meet that need?
• Are there any deficiencies in the capability or performance of the tool?
• Are there any untapped capabilities or functionality contained in the tool?
• What data is produced by the tool and how is the data stored?
• What facilities are available to access the data within the tool?
Within each service area an evaluation should also be made as to whether there are
additional needs that could be met by tools that are currently available.
2.4 Roles and Responsibilities Instructions
Using the defined roles within each service area:
• What roles are currently filled? Who is the company staff member filling the role?
• Are all of the responsibilities detailed in the ITIL specification being met? If not,
what responsibilities are lacking and why?
• What is the current level of effort for those roles? Is that level of effort adequate?
• What roles currently require inordinate levels of effort?
• What roles are currently going unfilled?
In this section of each service area, a record should be made of all current company
staffing to fill these roles. This staff record should be correlated to the recommended
roles for each respective service area to produce the source information necessary for
staffing recommendations.
3 Service Support Assessment
3.1 Problem Management
3.1.1 Overview
The goal of Problem Management is to minimize the adverse impact of Incidents and
Problems on the business that are caused by errors within the IT Infrastructure, and to
prevent recurrence of Incidents related to these errors. In order to achieve this goal,

Problem Management seeks to get to the root cause of Incidents and then initiate
actions to improve or correct the situation.
The Problem Management process has both reactive and proactive aspects. The
reactive aspect is concerned with solving Problems in response to one or more
Incidents. Proactive Problem Management is concerned with identifying and solving
Problems and Known errors before Incidents occur in the first place.
Problem control, error control and proactive Problem Management are all within the
scope of the Problem Management process. In terms of formal definitions, a ‘Problem’ is
an unknown underlying cause of one or more Incidents, and a ‘Known error’ is a
Problem that is successfully diagnosed and for which a workaround has been identified.
Inputs to the Problem Management process are:
• Incident details from Incident Management
• configuration details from the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
• any defined workarounds (from Incident Management)
The major activities of Problem Management are:
• Problem control
• error control
• the proactive prevention of Problems
• identifying trends
• obtaining management information from Problem Management data
• the completion of major Problem reviews
Outputs of the process are:
• Known Errors
• a Request for Change (RFC)
• an updated Problem record (including a solution and/or any available
workarounds)
• for a resolved Problem, a closed Problem record
• response from Incident matching to Problems and Known Errors
• management information

3.1.2 Questionnaire
Interview Date:
Participants:
Name Role Dept
Level 1: Pre-requisites
3.1.2.1 Are at least some problem management activities established in the
organization, e.g. problem determination, problem analysis, problem
resolution?
3.1.2.2 Are problem management activities assigned to specific individuals or
functional areas?
3.1.2.3 Is there a procedure by which significant incidents are escalated by
incident management?
3.1.2.4 Are potential problems formally assessed and identified prior to
disruption occurring?
Level 1.5: Management Intent
3.1.2.5 Has the purpose and benefits of problem management been
disseminated within the organization?

3.1.2.6 Does the organization have procedures for the registration of problems
and their resolution?
3.1.2.7 Is there management commitment to support staff allocating sufficient
time for structural problem solving activities?
3.1.2.8 Is the organization committed to reducing the total number of problems
and the number of incidents that interrupt the conduct of business?
3.1.2.9 Is there management support for problem management staff only
accepting support requests from authorized sources?
Level 2: Process Capability
3.1.2.10 Have responsibilities for various problem management activities been
assigned?
3.1.2.11 Is there a procedure for analyzing significant, recurring and unresolved
incidents and identifying underlying problems?
3.1.2.12 Is there a procedure by which potential problems are classified, in
terms of category, urgency, priority and impact and assigned for
investigation?

3.1.2.13 Do problem owners have adequate guidelines for identifying and
recording the nature of a problem?
3.1.2.14 Are complex problem investigations across for example, several
technical areas adequately coordinated?
3.1.2.15 Is there a procedure for problem closure?
3.1.2.16 Do you have a mechanism for tracking problem resolution?
3.1.2.17 Do you monitor the effectiveness of problem support areas?
Level 2.5: Internal Integration
3.1.2.18 Is the nature of the problem always documented as part of the problem
record?
3.1.2.19 Is Problem Management responsible for the completeness of all
problem records?
3.1.2.20 Does problem management escalate problems with severe impact to the
CAB to increase the priority of the RFC or to implement an urgent
change as appropriate?

February 25, 2009 10 of 15
3.1.2.21 Are proposed solutions to a problem reviewed and authorized by a third
party?
3.1.2.22 Are problem records updated to reflect the progress in resolving the
problem?
3.1.2.23 Is the Problem Manager responsible for reviewing the problem records?
Level 3: Products
3.1.2.24 Are standard reports concerning problems produced regularly?
3.1.2.25 Are problem records updated on resolution of a problem?
3.1.2.26 Are requests for change raised on the basis of problem analysis?
3.1.2.27 Do problem management reports comment on the results of proactive
problem management?
Level 3.5: Quality Control
3.1.2.28 Are the standards and other quality criteria made explicit and applied to
problem management activities?

February 25, 2009 11 of 15
3.1.2.29 Are the personnel responsible for problem management activities
suitably trained?
3.1.2.30 Does the organization set and review either targets or objectives for
Problem Management?
3.1.2.31 Does the organization use suitable tools to support the problem
management process?
Level 4: Management Information
3.1.2.32 Does Problem Management provide management with information
concerning analysis of problem records?
concerning recurring problems of a particular type or with an individual
item?
concerning the need for more customer training or better
documentation?
concerning trends in problem distribution and potential 'hot' spots?

February 25, 2009 12 of 15
Level 4.5: External Integration
3.1.2.36 Do you hold regular meetings with interested parties in which Problem
Management (PM) matters are discussed?
3.1.2.37 Does PM exchange information with Configuration Management
regarding the quality of configuration records, highlighting any issues,
and the potential flagging of items as 'failed' (or equivalent)?
3.1.2.38 Does PM exchange information with Change Management regarding the
details of any changes to resolve problems or on emergency actions
undertaken?
3.1.2.39 Does PM exchange information with Incident Management for
identification of significant incidents or multiple incidents exhibiting
common symptoms in order to identify problems?
3.1.2.40 Does PM exchange information with the Service Desk concerning
related incidents, or follow-up on initial handling and possible feedback
to users (e.g. via urgent bulletins for major incidents)?
3.1.2.41 Does PM exchange information with Service Level Management
regarding priority handling of problems and potential impact on service
level agreement performance?
3.1.2.42 Does PM exchange information with IT Service Continuity Management
regarding possible contingency actions in the event of a major outage?

February 25, 2009 13 of 15
3.1.2.43 Does PM exchange information with Availability Management for
detection and avoidance of problems and incidents?
3.1.2.44 Does PM exchange information with Release Management (if applicable)
regarding current CIs and for possible association of problems with
specific CIs?
3.1.2.45 Does PM exchange information with Capacity Management for potential
implications of planning options, and the likely effect on problem
trends?
Level 5: Customer Interface
3.1.2.46 Do you check with the customer that the activities performed by
Problem Management adequately support their business needs?
3.1.2.47 Do you check with the customer that they are happy with the services
provided?
3.1.2.48 Are you actively monitoring trends in customer satisfaction?
3.1.2.49 Are you feeding customer survey information into the service
improvement agenda?

February 25, 2009 14 of 15
3.1.2.50 Are you monitoring the customer's value perception of the services
provided to them?
3.1.3 Tools Inventory and Assessment
3.1.3.1 Tool
3.1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
3.1.4.1 Identified Roles
Processes tend to span functions within the organization. Therefore it is important to
define the responsibilities associated with the activities in the process that have to be
performed. To remain flexible, it is advisable to use the concept of roles. A role is
defined as a set of responsibilities, activities and authorizations. In this chapter, very
brief examples of relevant roles within the process are defined.
Roles should be assigned to people or groups within an organization. This assignment
can be full-time or part-time, depending on the role and the organization.
Problem Manager
The Problem Manager has the responsibility for all Problem Management activities and
has the following specific responsibilities:
• developing and maintaining the Problem control process
• reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Problem control process
• producing management information
• managing Problem support staff
• allocating resources for the support effort
• monitoring the effectiveness of error control and making recommendations for
improving it
• developing and maintaining Problem and error control systems
• reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of proactive Problem Management
activities
It is recommended that the Service Desk Manager and the Problem Manager roles are
not combined because of the conflicting interests inherent in these roles.

February 25, 2009 15 of 15
Problem support
Problem support has both reactive and proactive responsibilities, as follows:
• reactive responsibilities:
• identifying Problems (by analyzing Incident data, for example)
• investigating Problems, according to impact, through to resolution or error
identification
• raising RFCs to clear errors
• monitoring progress on the resolution of Known Errors
• advising Incident Management staff on the best available workarounds for
Incidents related to unresolved Problems/Known Errors
• assisting with the handling of major Incidents and identifying the root
causes
• pro-active responsibilities:
• identifying trends and potential Problem sources (by reviewing Incident
and Problem analyses)
• raising RFCs to prevent the recurrence of Problems
• preventing the replication of Problems across multiple systems
3.1.4.2 Current Staffing

Pgs problem management assessment 022509

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (7)

Similar to Pgs problem management assessment 022509 (20)

More from wardell henley (20)

Pgs problem management assessment 022509