Problem management pursues three objectives:

• It reduces the probability of problems and incidents occurring,
• it finds and eliminates the causes of recurring incidents and
• it minimises the effects of unavoidable incidents.

Problem management consists of all the activities required to diagnose the underlying causes of incidents and to find a solution to these problems. It also ensures the implementation of solutions with the right control procedures through the use of change management and release management.

The three processes of problem management, incident management and change management together serve to improve the quality of IT services. When incidents are resolved, the solution is documented. At a given point in time, this information is used to speed up incident handling and identify permanent solutions. This reduces the number of incidents and the time it takes to resolve them, resulting in shorter downtimes and fewer disruptions to business-critical IT services.

Known error:

A known error is a problem with a documented cause and, as a rule, a tested and functioning workaround.

Workaround:

Workarounds are temporary solutions to reduce or eliminate the effects of known errors (and thus problems) for which no final solution is yet available. Workarounds are therefore often used to minimise the effects of incidents or problems for which it is not possible to eliminate the causes in the short term.

Problem management consists of the two processes "Proactive problem management" and "Reactive problem management".

Proactive problem management:

see Continuous Service Improvement

Reactive problem management:

Activities:

• Identification
• registration
• Classification
• prioritisation
• Investigation and diagnosis
• Deciding on workarounds
• Identification of known errors
• Solution
• Finalisation
• Review
• Correction of errors found