CHAPTER 5: PROBLEM MANAGEMENT

‘I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.’

Paul Anderson

What is a problem?

A problem is an incident or multiple incidents for which the root cause is not known. Problems can sometimes be discovered because of multiple incidents exhibiting similar systems, e.g. a computer not booting-up occasionally is an incident but the same computer (or all similar models) not booting-up every Monday morning is a problem that needs further investigation. Until a solution is found, those end-users will face the same issues week after week. Also, an incident cannot be classified as a problem, e.g. if the mouse of the CEO’s computer is not ...

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