1. Processes Major IT Service Issue Problem for Major IT Service Issue
Terminology > Major IT Service Issue today: Observations and updates > Problem Management > Discussion

2. Incident: Fix it ASAP Problem: Keep it from happening again
Incident vs. Problem
Incident: Fix it ASAP
Problem: Keep it from happening again
This slide expresses why Major IT Service Issue and the Problem process should be separate documents:
Outage/Major IT Service Issue a process—focus on communicating and getting issue fixed ASAP
Problem: Understand the root cause of the issue and prevent it from happening again. Workarounds may get issues fixed ASAP, but if we don’t address the root cause, then we are allowing future outages that could have been avoided.

3. Terms with Example Incident Disruption to business service
“I cannot withdraw money from this ATM”
Major IT Service Issue
Outage of a core production service
“No one can withdraw money from this ATM.”
Problem
A cause of one or more incidents.
“No money can be withdrawn from the ATM because it was not refilled with cash.”
Incident: Card magnetic stripe not working correctly or person forgot their PIN. Though it may be a disruption of greater impact.
Major IT Service Issue: Consider if this is the only ATM machine at the bank—now many people cannot use the service. Customers should know when the service is not available, how long it is expected to be unavailable, and when issues are resolved.
Problem: What was the cause of this outage—this ATM not fulfilling withdrawals? It could be a broken process or an unexpected situation. In diagnosing the Problem, a workaround should be identified and shared to mitigate the outage and thus incidents. In this case, directing customers to go into the lobby, and then calling someone to load money into the machine. In this way the outage can be addressed. The focus of Problem though is prevention--how do we prevent this outage or issue from happening again?

4. Major IT Service Issue Identify issue ASAP Always triggers Problem
Communicate through public channels
IT Status (Outage, Degradation)
Tech Support
Notify parties
Resolve outage
After-action review
Today’s Major IT Service Issue focuses on communicating an issue early to appropriate parties and addressing the disruption to faculty/staff/students.
Always triggers problem: All Major IT Service issues (degradation of core production services) generate problems OTHER problems CAN be created that do not trigger Major IT Service Issues (this process is still in development)
Communicate: IT Status, techsupport
Notify: Service Owner, IT Comms team, Service Desk manager, Senior Leadership
After Action Review: Service Owner attaches to the problem record created during the Major IT Service Issue.
“The Virginia Tech Information Technology (IT) major IT service issue process is intended to identify and ultimately resolve major IT service issues as quickly as possible through proper incident management, predefined escalation paths, and prompt communication procedures for our customers”

5. Problem Management for Major IT Service Issue
Problem record created—associated with Major IT Service Issue and Incidents
Collaborative effort across Service Now
Technical notes and workaround in Problem record
Communicate workaround/resolution to all associated incidents simultaneously
Manage sets of incidents rather than one-by-one
Service Owner identifies and addresses root cause
Problem record created. Incidents are associated with the Problem Record in Service Now. Anyone with an ITIL license in Service Now will be able to review problems and associate incidents with those problems.
Incidents can be communicated to simultaneously or closed simultaneously.
The purpose of Problem Management: minimize the number of incidents and their severity by ensuring they can be resolved in an expedient manner; reduce the adverse impact of incidents caused by underlying errors in IT infrastructure; and prevent incident reoccurrence. This is accomplished by seeking to understand the underlying cause of an incident and addressing that cause.

6. Benefits of Problem Process
Data relationships
Association of incidents with their cause
Known Error database
Combined effort
Any fulfiller can link Incidents to a Problem
Find the fix
Workarounds are kept with technical notes and easy to distinguish in records.
Consistency
A workaround can be sent to all users with related incidents.
Documentation
Technical notes about outage and workaround in one place. So are after action reviews!
Easier management
All incidents related to a Problem can be resolved at once instead of one-by-one.
See slide above.

7. Where to find process documentation

8. Next Steps for Improvement
Continuous Feedback
Regular Process Review
Training
Cont Feedback from Service Partners, Service Now Partners and everyone else affected by Major IT Service Issues
Some initial targets are triggers, timelines, and after action reviews.
Training both for Service Owners and Incident Management partners (DIT groups who use Service Now) on using Service Now during an active Major IT Service Issue.

9. Questions?
Demo:
Problem > Create Outage > Monitor incidents > Incident association > Technical notes > Workaround > Communicate workaround > End outage > Attach AAR > Known error? > Resolve incidents > Resolve root cause

10. CREDITS
Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:
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Hard work, time, and energy by David Duckett