During last week's webinar on Problem Management (watch on demand) we had over 30 questions that we couldn't respond to live. So we followed up on them all via email and I have included a few for general consumption in this blog.
The deck can be downloaded here.
Generic Queries
Q1: Can you share some specific detail on what data points others have used to justify problem management investment?
A: Outage prevention, identifying issues earlier in the process, preventing service interruptions and outages. Cost avoidance - the cost of resources to manage and monitor for problems versus customer reputation and satisfaction.
Q2: Do you have any recommendations on how to ensure/improve the quality of RCAs? Should there be a centralized group that produces RCAs or can it be decentralized and have the expert support teams provide the RCA?
A: A technical writer or business writing skills are key. There needs to be some element of technical description but not too deep that the people reading it don't understand the what/where/why/how. Chris Pope always had it decentralized and made the service owners accountable for delivery. Otherwise you get into a fight over the content and subtle meanings of the words used to document/describe what did or didn't happen, versus focusing on documenting clearly the outcomes and action needed.
Q3: Any suggestions on topic triggering problem records and prioritization based on impact (how to do this automatically based on patterns and trends in incidents based on historical data)?
A: Not an easy one to do. And to have a pattern match or AI type approach is tricky because not everything is instantly recognizable or repeatable. If it was, you wouldn't have any problems in your environment. Impact is an obvious one but if an incident is of high or major impact to the business, it doesn't necessarily require a problem record. The obvious answer is all P1s should but that doesn't always apply. A case-by-case review as part of any PIR should determine next steps and if a problem record is required.
Q4: What is the recommended average number of Problems a Problem Manager should manage at one time?
A: It depends on how tricky or in depth they are. Some could be quick and easy to resolve, versus those that might require major investment or project type activities. Also, if a solution is provided by a 3rd party, then it's more a coordination effort for fixes/patches rather than actual investigation type work. So we haven't seen a metric like this in use.
ServiceNow Functionality
Q5: Regarding problem management functionality in ServiceNow, do you have recommended prerequisite modules to make best-use of this?
A: In terms of other ServiceNow applications (modules) ... Incident and Change Management. Configuration Management would be a tremendous value add too.
Q6: How can I register known errors in ServiceNow?
A: We have some info on our Wiki: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Creating_Knowledge#Creating_Knowledge_from_a_Problem
Q7: There is no place in Service Now to record the CAP...after the RCA is done for a problem???
A: Attaching tasks to the problem record is one way to do this. Customers can vary in this approach, others use risk registers and RIDAC as examples. Chris Pope would personally use task records.
Q8: What major enhancements, if any, have been made in the Dublin and Eureka releases pertaining to the Problem Management module?
A: None were made in Eureka. The Structure Problem Analysis (SPA) application was added in Dublin http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Structured_Problem_Analysis
Kepner Tregoe
Q9: Does SPA come out of the box or is it something we need to buy separately?
A: Yes, the Kepner Tregoe module is an OOTB feature that was part of our Dublin Release. You can request this via support or log a ticket in the HI Customer Service system.
Q10: Would a trainer from Kepner Tregoe be on site to train on the methodology before activating the module?
A: Ideally yes, but that's is at the discretion of the customer. There is huge benefit to doing the training.
Another blog on the webinar content will follow shortly.
Image source: Flickr: Gamma Man's Photostream
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