Proactive Problems

[Banan]

Hi guys,

Let me cut directly to the questions:

How do you define a proactive problem?
When do you create a proactive problem record?
Is there a "guideline" for when/how you go about proactive problems?

Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks!

Rgds,
b.

[dam]

straight from the blue book (ITIL V 2)
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6.8 Proactive Problem Management
[...]
Proactive Problem Management activities are concerned with identifying and resolving Problems and Known errors before Incidents occur, thus minimising the adverse impact on the service and business-related costs.
[...]
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is the "before" that makes the difference. Instead waiting for an incident to happen to start investigating a problem you work on a problem to avoid possible incidents in the near future.

Being very rough is like going to the gas station when the tank is getting empty instead waiting the car engine shouts down because the tank IS empty. How to do this? You should monitor you gas consummation...

[dboylan]

Another way to identify Problems proactively is to identify the failed components discovered in other Problems and Incidents and see if any other Services are reliant on identical components.

If you have discovered that a certain model/brand of hard drive is notorious for failing, then be proactive and open a Problem ticket to remove all of that model/brand from the environment.

[Timo]

But would that Problem record be any different from a reactive one as far as it's attributes concenred? Would a record be labled as "proactive"?

I am not disputing the accuracy of your statement dboylan, just curious if anybody has done that route before.

[pvschaik]

Do like your sub-question Timo.

It might be interesting to add a this as an extra field in the problem record so you can query the information in the future again.

I never set our procedures to record the difference between reactive and proactive problems. We used problem management in the R&D (and support) organization. Based on the weak area's in the software, problems were registered.