Is a Planned Outage considered a Problem?

[mamor]

Hi;
One of my users aked me if a Planned Outage is considered a Problem.
Otherwise, what is it considered?

[Mark-OLoughlin]

Hi,

a planned outage needs to have an approved change request and should be listed on the FSC as well.

Your service desk should have access to the FSC and should know that this is going on and that there will be ab outage. If the CR has been approved you have received authorisation to "effect" and outage. In some instances the planned outage is required due to another problem in other cases it is not.

You have been approved a window for the outage. if you remain inside this window you may not need a problem record provided that the service desk have access to the FSC. If they do not you may need to log a problem record so that they have visability of the planned outage.

Another factor is in how you calculate availability. Even though this is a planned outage does it go against your availability? Maybe you use problem records for calculating downtime. Maybe you have a provision in your availability process to say that business approved downtime does not count against overall availability scoring.

I don't think there is a right or a wrong here as there are other variables to consider a few have been mentioned above.
_________________
Mark O'Loughlin
ITSM / ITIL Consultant

[mamor]

Thanks Mark... that's good insights!

[Timo]

If not properly planned and executed you may have yourself a Problem as a result of a planned outage. But typically what you describe is considered a Change.