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Problem Management provides information on identified Problems, Known Errors and Requests for Change issued. This information can be on an ad-hoc or a periodic basis. Often, the information and reports are aimed at management in order to monitor the quality of the Problem Management process. However, it is also a useful for the management reports to be presented to the business and IT management in such a way that they can use the reports to inform the decision-making process within the organisations. Besides this, reports can also be relayed to other processes and the Service Desk.
Management information should provide insight into the effort and resources spent by the organisation on investigating, diagnosing and resolving Problems and Known Errors. Besides this, it is important to provide insight in the progress made and the results obtained as a result. Metrics have to be selected carefully. Only through careful and meaningful measurement can management form an opinion on the quality of the process.
Temporary Work-arounds, permanent fixes or simply information on the progress of resolutions should be cascaded to the people who reported the Problem. This information may also have to be cascaded to other Customers as a Problem affecting many people may only be reported by one person.
Disseminating this information is primarily a task of the Service Desk. Problem Management should provide sufficient information and support to the Service Desk for this task. Relevant information can be distributed by Problem Management to the Service Desk and the support organisation by feeding this information into existing Service Management tools and databases.
To disseminate information effectively, the Problem Management process should have access to Configuration Management information such as who uses what, when they use it, and where they are, plus all the necessary contact details. Some of the details required for Problem Management can be obtained from the call logging part of the Incident Management process. However, for Problem Management it is often more effective to use contact maps and formal communication routes agreed in advance of Problems occurring. This type of information is often obtained when negotiating (or renegotiating) SLAs. Another source is the regular service reviews that form part of Service Level Management.
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