Milestone 3 - 4

Class & Module IT Systems Capstone Project

Milestone 3 - 4: IT Customer Service

Name Ananda Aditya Surya

Milestone 3: Problem Management

Create report on the following topics on problem management

• Define the term problem and problem management

What is a basic definition of problem? A problem is a situation, question, or thing that causes
difficulty, stress, or doubt. A problem is also a question raised to inspire thought. In mathematics, a
problem is a statement or equation that requires a solution. And to achive the solution and to make
the problem more easier to handle is to have a good problem management. Problem Management
is an IT service management process tasked with managing the life cycle of underlying "Problems."
Success is achieved by quickly detecting and providing solutions or workarounds to Problems in
order to minimize the impact on the organization and prevent a recurrence of the problem itself.

• What are the main features in problem management?

Problem Identification

Problem identification activities identify and log problems by:

✓ Performing trend analysis of incident records.

✓ Detecting duplicate and recurring issues.
✓ During major incident management, identifying a risk that an
incident could recur.
 ✓ Analyzing information received from suppliers and partners also
information that received from internal software developers, test
teams, and project teams.

Problem control

Problem management is a collaborative effort, so for results to be

effective, multiple departments and stakeholders should be involved
in the problem control phase. Problem control includes activities like
prioritization, investigation, analysis, and documenting known errors
and workarounds. There are numerous techniques that help in
prioritization and analysis of problems. Just like incidents, problems
will be prioritized based on the risk they pose in terms of probability
and impact to services. Focus should be given to problems that have
highest risk to services and service management.

Error control

This phase manages known errors from the KEDB (known error
database) by regularly checking it for possible permanent fixes if
they pass the cost-benefit analysis. Once a problem is analyzed, it's
documented as a known error. These known errors are regularly
reassessed to account for the impact they create, and to test the
effectiveness of workarounds.

• Describes activities involved in Problem Management with the aid of diagram

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• What are the different types of Problem Management?

Reactive problem management: if one major incident or a series of incidents which are significant in
totality. It complements incident management by focusing on the underlying cause of an incident to
prevent its recurrence and identifying workarounds when necessary. Reactive problem management
considers all contributory causes, including causes that contributed to the duration and impact of
incidents, as well as those that led to the incidents happening.

proactive problem management: Proactive problem management is driven from a continual

improvement perspective. The trigger is not the result of an active incident, but rather the result of
identified risks to service. These risks may include warnings, errors, or potential breaches to
thresholds that indicate potential problem areas. As such, proactive problem management activities
take place as ongoing activities targeted to improve the overall availability and end user satisfaction
with IT services.

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• Define the term incident and incident management

an occurrence of an action or situation that is a separate unit of experience.

Incidents are events of any kind that disrupt or reduce the quality of service (or threaten to do so). A
business application going down is an incident. A crawling-but-not-yet-dead web server can be an
incident, too. It’s running slowly and interfering with productivity. Worse yet, it poses the even-
greater risk of complete failure. Or might be permanent damage also a risk.
Incident management is the process of responding to an unplanned event or service interruption to
restore the service to its operational state. The incident management process ensures that normal
service operation is restored as quickly as possible and the business impact is minimized.

• With the aid diagram shows several standard steps to be taken when an incident occurs

Incident logging

An incident can be logged through phone calls, emails, SMS, web forms published on the self-service
portal or via live chat messages.

Incident categorization

Incidents can be categorized and sub-categorized based on the area of IT or business that the
incident causes a disruption in like network, hardware etc.

Incident prioritization

The priority of an incident can be determined as a function of its impact and urgency using a priority
matrix. The impact of an incident denotes the degree of damage the issue will cause to the user or
business.

Incident routing and assignment

Creating and managing tasks

SLA management and escalation

Incident resolution

Incident closure

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• What are the tools used for problem management and incident management?

List for the problem management tools :

Fishbone diagrams

Flowcharts

Strategy maps, Mental maps, Idea maps, Concept maps

Layered process audit software

Charting software

MindManager
5 whys

List for the top notch incident management tools :

• Freshservice
• NinjaOne
• Zendesk
• HaloITSM
• ServiceDesk Plus
• SolarWinds Service Desk
• JIRA Service Desk
• Mantis BT

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 • Pager Duty
• Victorops
• OpsGenie
• Logic Manager
• Spiceworks
• Plutora

Milestone 4: Case Management

Task 1: List and explain 5 stages of case management
1. Assignment

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Assigment Phase is where support agent carefully review
information, their aware of the case severity and any other
open cases belong to the customer/Client. Check all the
reported issue and take Their responsible for the case and
provide a response as soon as possible.

2. Scoping
The scoping review used five of the six steps which are:
1) identifying the research question.
2) identifying relevant studies.
3) study selection.
4) charting (mapping) the data.
5) collating, summarizing and reporting the results.
Support agent handle customer issue and case, forwarding
the issue taking note and file the issue also by following
communication procedures, guidelines and policies.

3. Troubleshooting
A procedure that agent use of during research and
troubleshooting or the process of identifying problems
that reported using files that contain similar issue or
might create new issue solver test to solve the
problems and also using methods.

4. Vaildation
To validate the troubleshooting method. The method
is very promising but requires validation through
further testing. If an early solution was found the
procedure can be done very quick. Agent need to
confirm for the solution is working or not. If it does not
work a new solution will be created and start the
procedure again. Also after new solution work agent
need to make document validation for further issue.

5. Closure
Accepting the solution validation customer must
approved the case to be closed. After issue been fixed
and no further problem, the agent must close the case
with the customer. Also the agent have the right to
offer reviews of the problem solving.

Task 2: Documenting cases in Assignment stage

The Assignment phase is the first step of taking a case. It's an important stage because it is the
support agent’s first contact with the customer. The goal is to connect with the customer and to
recognize the severity of the case so the support agent will know when to initiate contact.
Why is documenting the Assignment stage important? Are verbal discussions sufficient?

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Documenting is really important because, we as support agent need to documented when the issue
occurs, what step should we take when the same issue occour in the future, we also need to
assigned severity of the issue, and also documentation is really needed for company future.

What exactly should you be documenting? What should or shouldn’t be included?

We should be documenting, Email correspondence between the customer and the support agent is
to be included in the case documentation. Email correspondence between the support agent and
any internal resource that involves answering questions, transferring the case, escalating the case,
or any case related material is also to be included in the case documentation.

Better documentation includes details that make it easier to understand the issue. Keep the
following in mind when documenting case issues:

• A picture is worth a thousand words, document with pictures if possible (error messages)

• Give or illustrate examples of the issue

• Don’t presume to assume: be specific

• Humanize the email: let a reader feel a little more comfortable while reading it

Task 3: Documenting cases in Scoping stage

Scoping stage include recording and documenting features, functions and requirements to
troubleshoot the case. There should be sufficient information without adding details that are not
important, such as moving to troubleshooting before the customer agrees to the scope or offering a
solution before fully understanding the issue.
*End of Report*

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