ITIL 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 impact on the organization and prevent recurrence. Problem Management also attempts to find the error in the IT infrastructure that is causing the Problem and contributing to the Incidents that users may have. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides the following definitions for usage within this process:

• Problem: “The cause of one or more Incidents. The cause is not usually known at the time a Problem record is created"
• Error: “A design flaw or malfunction that causes a failure of one or more IT services or other configuration items”
• Known Error: “A Problem that has a documented root cause and workaround”
• Root Cause: “The underlying or original cause of an incident or problem”.