Effectiveness of Problem Management

[praky]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum. Recently my company has implemented ITIL main process (Incident, Change & Problem). I've been assign to draft out a process to measure the effectiveness of the problem management. Is someone in the industry have done this before. Please advice. Thanks

[Guerino1]

Hello Praky,

Problem Management is the proactive process of addressing quality improvement in Products, Services, and Processes.

Since one of the many ways of identifying Problems is to scan the Incident inventory for trends and patterns and use that information to address quality improvements for Products, Services, and Processes, some ways of showing the impact of Problem Management are to prove that:

• Quantity of occuring Incidents have decreased for one or more Products, Services, or Processes.
  
• Time to resolve Incidents has dramatically gone down, when it comes to servicing Incidents for specific Products, Services, and Processes.
  
• Cost of handling/addressing Incidents has gone down for specific Products, Services, and Processes.
  

The key is to find patterns and trends in your Incident inventory, around specific Products, Services, and Processes, that show the state before Problem Management was performed and then compare it to the Incident patterns and trends in your Incident inventory after Problem Management was performed. The "after state" should show a clear, tangible, and quantifyable improvement over the "starting state".

Problem Management, when done correctly, should show a constant improvement trend in specific Products, Services, and Processes... and ultimately in your enterprise.

Anyhow, I hope this helps.

My Best,

Frank
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[Edited by Admin to remove link]

[ITILiano]

I agree with Frank on this one..... the baseline metrics that you using as your measuring stick if you will, are very key. Chose metrics that should show what effect problem mgt is having on service improvement.

Regards,
David

[praky]

I agreed with you comment. I still cannot understand how we can measure the effective of PM when we do not have the baseline to compare. Probably I would turn the question the other way by asking what is the industrial to measure effective of PM? e.g % of KE vs RC?

In ITIL service matrix handbook that are few KPIs been recommended and it can be implemented easily but how do we know it has been improved? Probably this is the changellange that service management folks that still trying to figure out. Probably I'm wrong as well. Hope the guru of ITIL in this forum could share some light.

[Globis]

[Jules]

May I suggest some KPI's...

Effectiveness:
% incidents matched to problems
% incidents matched to known errors
% reduction in time to identify workarounds

There is no baseline 'pre PM' except to count the reduction in number of changes arising from priority 1/2 incidents since introduction of PM.

Efficiency:
Measurement could use same criteria but measure time spent on PM activities

Hope fully the curves are all positive over time as the process matures.

....but please shoot me down.. I am here to learn!