Problem for one-offs incidents?

[Aries]

Hello,

Just need some advice from the experts out there:

Do you log a problem for one-offs incidents?
Do you close off those problems where you can't replicate the fault and where incidents haven't occurred for years?

Many Thanks!

[Ziad]

Nothing happens in the void, do you agree?

I cannot see how an incident may occur without a reason. Especially that it occurred only once. In such a case, where the reason behind an incident cannot be identified, I will look for a human error.
However, the incident will not be open forever... Yes, I would close it once its stalled.

Regards,
Z!

[sherlock]

1. if the incident has a major (financial, customer) impact or is a disaster, we start crisis committee, RCA and lessons learned, so yes, even if it might be a one-shot. The risk might be too high
2. if incidents do not reoccur for years, problem is closed/freezed

[Gaulty]

Problems can be raised for individual incidents where appropriate. ie: depending on severity of incident, loss of service time, how critical the service is, contractual obligations, upon request by an appropriate party etc.

[Gaulty]

oops nearly forgot,
it's ok to close problems, you can always do trend analysis on the amount of problems closed without a root cause. problem managemnet on problem management

[Aries]

Thanks all for giving your advice on these topics.

We have now started to maintain a 1-off incidents registers to monitor the trend. If more of these incidents recur again, we will raise a problem.

[NeilSJ]

I raise a Problem for all Major Incidents, simply as a mechanism for tracking progress against preventative actions agreed as the result of the Incident wash-up. This ensures that we don't lose track of actions to be done, without keeping the Incident record open beyond service restoration.

Regards,
Neil