Recording the "Root Cause" for Known Errors of new

[pdw1975]

Hello all,

New subscriber and keen Service Management chap here – I would be interested to hear opinion on something please

An organisation I am working with is starting to push on getting Known Error (KE) info from new and upgraded services. These are highlighted through a formal Service Introduction process.

The KEs are getting logged in the Problem Management tool and assigned appropriately, to be investigated for fixing. That aspect is fine, but there is very recently a call to add the same Root Cause categorisation as is recorded for reactive Problems.

I'm uncomfortable with this as it really feels like it is different information. Capturing the RC info for reactive Problems tells us where we have deficiencies to address - Do you think you can actually have a 'root cause' for a KE that has come from Service Introduction? If so there is surely a requirement to highlight it as non-reactive? It just doesn't feel right!

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Piers.

[eisbergsk]

interesting concept. I'm stuck in Reactive mode, and I appreciate the importance of tracking reality (actual recorded incidents, not just speculation). But "Known Error info from new and upgraded services" could be considered....proactive PM. Can your tool handle adding that as a category? Or perhaps, even the fact that a problem record has no incidents recorded against it would make it a proactive problem.
It depends on what your RC categories are and what you use them for. I like to focus on what I call "Actionable Root cause". Sometimes the Root Cause is known, but there is no specific action that can be taken to remove it. Instead of stone-walling, I ask the Subject Matter Experts to find an infrastructure item that can be changed, instead of focussing on the one that can't. So our Root Cause categories are the same as our CMDB categories... does that help or confuse?
/Sharon