Problem Management
The desk has fixed the warehouse scanner forty-one times. Each fix took eight minutes and worked. Each ticket was closed properly with a note, and each one was, by every number the desk reports, a success. Forty-one successes, five and a half hours, one scanner, and nobody has asked why. That is the whole of problem management: the question nobody asks because every individual ticket was fine. An incident is something that broke. A problem is the reason it keeps breaking, and it lives in the gaps between tickets, where no one is assigned.
This series is about assigning someone. It covers problems versus incidents and the we-have-fixed-this-five-times test. It covers finding the repeat tickets with search, categories and the Friday sort. It covers root cause analysis without a committee, in one page. Then come known errors and workarounds, published to the people who answer the tickets. It covers getting the permanent fix done, with the cost of the repeats as the business case. And it covers running problem management in an hour a week. None of it needs a problem-management module; the practice needs a list, a convention and a Friday.
Articles in This Series
- Problems vs Incidents: The Difference That Saves Hours
The problem record idea, the we-have-fixed-this-five-times test, the incident that is really a symptom, and a problem record skeleton. - Finding the Repeat Tickets Hiding in the Closed Queue
Search, categories, reopen reports, the top ten, the Friday sort, patterns that only show across months, a worked example, and a repeat-ticket hunt checklist. - Root Cause Analysis Without a Committee, on One Page
Five whys, the timeline, the cause-and-effect sketch in plain words, stopping at the actionable cause, and a one-page RCA sheet. - Known Errors and Workarounds: Write the Fix Down Once
The known-error record, publishing workarounds to agents in the knowledge base, linking new tickets to the known error, and the record to copy. - Getting the Permanent Fix Done, Not Just Approved
The cost of the repeat ticket as the business case, scheduling the fix through change control, verifying it worked by watching the tickets stop, and a fix proposal. - Running Problem Management in an Hour a Week
The weekly problem review, the problem list, ownership, the small-team cadence, what to drop in a bad week, and the problem list to copy.
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This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.