Jul 28, 2015

Problem Management: Challenges and Opportunities - Part 1



“Please not again!!!” Srinivas Prabhu says as he looks Agastya’s eyes.
“Prabhu ..Srinivas, Let us understand his point of view and thought process on problem management” Narasimha Murthy says to Srinivas. 
“Problem Management is always a gray area in our account” Adds Prashanth Tandon.
“Poor guy Agastya, he is behind us to implement problem management practice from past 2 to 3 years; let’s understand the intent of it first” Rajeev says.
“In a recent Gartner document (Improving IT Service Support with Incident and Problem Management Integration), it states that only 20% of organizations surveyed have well-integrated Incident & Problem Management from a people, process and technology perspective” Agastya says and continues “our organization is in the same group as the other 80% of the companies in this Gartner survey”
“Will Problem Management bring in breakthrough?” Praveen Gaur questions.
“Praveen let’s understand the basics first; on why we need problem management practice to be implemented in our account and what are the value additions” Teja says.
“True teja, many of us does not even know the basics of problem management but we act like we are the experts” Rajeev says as he looks at few managers seated beside him in the conference room.
“Can I explain” Asks Sujan.
“Sujan, I thought you have done PMP and I don’t think PMP covers problem management aspects” Nikhil asks.
“The concept is generic; it depends on how you interpret and how one will apply in Application development and Application maintenance scenario” Sujan provides clarifications to Nikhil.
“Let’s get on to the business” Prashanth interrupts the conversation, to make it more specific to the identified initiative.
“Firstly, we should understand the difference between incident and problem. The most common mistakes we do in service industry are to treat a Problem like a “Big Incident”” Sujan shares his thoughts.
“Very true, we have tendency to treat incident as problem” Narasimha clarifies.
“The key question to ask is “Can my user now work?” If yes, then close the incident and if appropriate raise problem” Agastya explains.
“Can you provide more clarity, I am bit confused” Rajeev asks Agastya.
“Objective of incident is to restore service as quickly as possible, right” Agastya ask everyone in the room.
“Right” Everyone nods head with cheerful voice.
“Incident ends when user is able to carry on with their job regardless whether or not the cause is identified and resolved; right” Agastya asks again.
“Right” once again loud voice was heard and few heads nodding to right n left side.
Nikhil pitches in and says “Problem Management deals with solving the underlying cause of one or more incidents; therefore, the emphasis of Problem Management is to resolve the root cause and to find permanent solutions”
“”One or more incidents”, perfect definition” Agastya says with smile.
Looks like mugged up and came for the meeting Rajeev mutters.

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