Problem Managers that are technically clueless

[Landerson]

Experience has taughut me, problem work shops are funny.

[Diarmid]

The Problem Management role is not the problem investigation role, nor the problem solution designer role.

However, if you need one person to do all these things then it will definitely help if that person has good relevant technical knowledge. Even here, in any but the simplest of IT services, there will be technical areas outside the person's experience, disproportionately, since the areas covered by technical expertise within the organization are less likely to be at the root of problems.

A full time problem manager, still needs a good background in the infrastructure involved, but no more so than in the organization, its functions, objectives and scope. In other words that person needs to be able to grasp what is going on in the systems sufficiently to critically understand what the techies are saying and guide them in the directions that will arrive at a good resolution for the business.
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"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[UKVIKING]

A PM mgmt person need not be technical

He / she should be able to time manage the team.

The PM team members should dare say be skilled in things in like area that they are responsible for, are able to conduct research, write documetns about specific, write in jargon and non jargon
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John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Marcel]

Indeed, the Problem Manager role does not require extensive technical expertise. A Problem Analyst (i.e. the role that actually performs the investigation or prepares the solution) definitely should be a SME.

The Problem Manager is more of a process driver and investigation facilitator. A good Problem Manager can add a lot of value to a room full of SMEs when leading an investigation. Such as preventing 'tunnel vision', ensuring proper investigation documentation, preventing blame games, and so on. It certainly helps if the Problem Manager has sufficient technical expertise that allows him/her to effectively communicate with the SMEs and to sense when somebody is telling utter nonsense.
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Manager of Problem Management
Fortune 100 Company
ITIL Certified

[LizGallacher]

Many years ago, when I was involved more directly in Problem Management, I found that having a reasonably basic understanding, but nothing in-depth could be an advantage. In a room full of techies, each with their own jargon and theories, insisting that they explained their theory and proposed solution in simple terms often helped get to the root of the problem. Each techie is techie in their own area, but not in others - once we reached a description and a theory which everybody could understand, the solution was often obvious
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Liz Gallacher,
ITIL EXPERT
Accredited ITIL and ISO/IEC20000 Trainer and Consultant - Freelance

[Diarmid]

Liz,

been there. Done that. It works a treat. And sometimes the techies actually learned something. And admitted it.
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[nzmoko]

I make a habit of ensuring that when I hire a problem manager, technical experience is not a pre-requisite (in my decision analysis objectives, technical experience is weighted a lowly 3 out of 10).

Problem Managers that aren't technical facilitate well, influence well and stay out of the content.

[Timo]

Having a technically clueless problem manage is awesome. Then he/she will be asking all these tech geeks - "please explain! Oh, and document your explanation so that when it turns out that you've been feeding me all this BS regarding the resolution I can hang it all back on you"

But seriously, what others said.

[morticia]

[BorisBear]

[morticia]

[noneforit]

It depends on how good your technical staff are at what they do.

In an indeal world, 'techies' should all be experts in their field
In reality it rarely works like this due to lack of experience and training due to inexperience or failure to invest properly in staff

I have found that (in Problem or MI meetings) some technical staff simply pretend they know the answer when in reality they actually don't

Techies don't seem to like to say the phrase 'I don't actually know'

In this scenario where either your technical people are not actually as good at their jobs as they are meant to be or just dont know the answer, having a technical understanding is always a bonus.