What is Incident Management..
Incident Management aims to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimise the adverse effect on business operations, thus ensuring that the best possible levels of service-quality and availability are maintained. ‘Normal service operation’ is defined here as service operation within Service Level Agreement (SLA) limits.
Incident Management can be defined as :
An ‘Incident’ is any event which is not part of the standard operation of the service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption or a reduction of the quality of the service.
The objective of Incident Management is to restore normal operations as quickly as possible with the least possible impact on either the business or the user, at a cost-effective price.
Problem Management
problem management aims to resolve the root causes of incidents and thus to minimise the adverse impact of incidents and problems on business that are caused by errors within the IT infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. 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 either a work-around or a permanent resolution has been identified. The CCTA defines problems and known errors as follows
A problem is a condition often identified as a result of multiple incidents that exhibit common symptoms. Problems can also be identified from a single significant incident, indicative of a single error, for which the cause is unknown, but for which the impact is significant.
A known error is a condition identified by successful diagnosis of the root cause of a problem, and the subsequent development of a work-around.
Problem management differs from incident management. The principal purpose of problem management is to find and resolve the root cause of a problem and prevention of incidents; the purpose of incident management is to return the service to normal level as soon as possible, with smallest possible business impact.
The problem-management process is intended to reduce the number and severity of incidents and problems on the business, and report it in documentation to be available for the first-line and second line of the help desk. The proactive process identifies and resolves problems before incidents occur. Such processes include:
* Trend analysis;
* Targeting support action;
* Providing information to the organisation
The Error Control Process iteratively diagnoses known errors until they are eliminated by the successful implementation of a change under the control of the Change Management process.
The Problem Control Process aims to handle problems in an efficient way. Problem control identifies the root cause of incidents and reports it to the service desk or other. customer service software Other activities are:
* Problem identification and recording
* Problem classification
* Problem investigation and diagnosis
The standard technique for identifying the root cause of a problem is to use an Ishikawa diagram, also referred to as a cause-and-effect diagram, tree diagram, or fishbone diagram. A brainstorming session—in which group members offer product-improvement ideas typically results in an Ishikawa diagram. For problem-solving, the goal is to find causes and effects of the problem.
A meta-model can define Ishikawa diagrams.
First there is the main subject, which is the backbone of the diagram that we are trying to solve or improve. The main subject is derived from a cause. The relationship between a cause and an effect is a double relation: an effect is a result of a cause, and the cause is the root of an effect. But there is just one effect for several causes and one cause for several effects.
