Problem Management is concerned with identifying the root causes of incidents and thus to avert or at least minimize the adverse impact of incidents by resolving underlying problems that are caused by errors within the Information Technology infrastructure, and to prescribe proactive measures to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors.
Problems that come to the attention of the Service Desk must be classified according to their meaning in a resolution framework. Service request management needs to determine the category, possible impact, urgency and priority of the request raised by user. Request basically falls into two types, namely information request and service request. Information request is mostly concerned with certain circumstances that no fault with the current system or any configuration is required thus can be dealt immediately by the Service Desk. Service request is usually attended while minor changes or alterations that is already mandated within the scope of the existing system configuration. In this case, request will be forwarded to the Desktop Support Group to be dealt with.
If problem is identified critical or high level in severity, problem management will get involved in resolving the underlying errors. In case the system or infrastructure needs to be upgraded, for example, new deployment of hardware, patching of operating system, reconfiguration of system and etc, it will be then handed over to change management for planning and recording change requests, assessing the potential impact, cost required, benefit and risk of a change, obtaining proper approval. While everything is in order, change management will start managing the implementation of a change, monitoring and reporting on the implementation, and reviewing and closing change requests.
