Greener COBIT and ITIL

Position / Role Title:

Problem Management:  Process Owner

Objective:

· Improved customer and user satisfaction

· Improved quality of IT services

· Limited disruption to or reduction of IT service quality

· Invested in suitable support tools (i.e. problem management)

· Effective service management

Accountable to:

Operations Manager

Working relationship with:

· Accountability: Incident management

· Accountability: Configuration management

· Accountability: Acquire and maintain applications

· Accountability: Acquire and maintain technological infrastructure

· Accountability: Release management

· Accountability: Change management

· Accountability: Continuity management

· Accountability: Service level management

· Accountability: Environmental management (ISO 14000)

· Accountability: Quality management (ISO 9001)

· Accountability: Service management (ISO 20000)

· Accountability: Security Management (ISO 17799)

· Accountability: Audit Management (audit trails and reviews – SAS70)

Responsible for:

· Effective oversight of problem management

· Breaches in contractual obligations and service level agreements

· Implementing processes to receive and classify problems that have been identified by incident management as potential problems.

· Escalating a problem when the impact becomes severe and referring it to an appropriate board to increase the priority of the RFC or to implement an urgent change, as appropriate.

· Adequate provisioning for effective problem management

· Approving expenditure on problem resolution

· Integrating the related processes of configuration, incident and problem management to ensure effective management of problems, enable improvements and reducing incidents.

· Improving on current levels of availability for data and services.

· Meeting customer expectations.

· Compliance with contractual obligations and regulatory requirements.

Primarily performs :

· Task: Adopt an IT process framework

· Task: Determine scope and boundaries of the process

· Task: Determine and publish process management goals and priorities

· Task: Draft management policy

· Task: Escalate problems using the predefined criteria, when appropriate, to the relevant parties

· Task: Undertake problem reviews for all unresolved, unusual or high-impact problems (including those affecting data integrity)

· Task: Take proactive measures to prevent the recurrence of incidents and mistakes that became problems

· Task: Respond proactively to trends such as recurring problems for particular components and locations

· Task: Report the impact on data integrity, security and business continuity

· Task: Respond to deficiencies brought about by resourcing, training or documentation constraints

· Task: Respond to non-conformance with policies, standards, legislation and contractual obligations

· Task: Report to incident management known errors in planned releases

· Task: Approve workarounds to known errors

· Task: Approve problem management decisions to “do nothing”

· Task: Take remedial action, when necessary, to achieve goals

· Task: Periodically check completeness and reliability of data retention records

· Task: Periodically check completeness and reliability of the audit trail

Key deliverables:

· Artefact: Problem Management Framework

· Artefact: Process Documentation

· Artefact: Terms of Reference

· Artefact: Process Owner Performance Appraisal

· Artefact: Process Records

· Artefact: Problem Management Goals

· Artefact: Risk Profile for Problem Management

· Artefact: Value Proposition for Problem Management

· Artefact: Problem Management Policy, Directives and Limits

· Artefact: Problem Management Requirements Definition

· Artefact: Consolidated List of Problem Management events that Impact the Achievement of Business Goals

· Artefact: Consolidated Report on Problem Management Expense Management

· Artefact: Process Performance Metrics

· Artefact: Report on the Monitoring of Process Execution

· Artefact: Report on Problem Management framework Evaluation

· Artefact: Status Report to Stakeholders

· Artefact: Problem Management Improvement Plan

· Artefact: Training Schedule for Skills Development

· Artefact: Complete, Reliable Known Error Data Base

Concurs with/about:

· Oversight authority for Service Support

· IT roles and responsibilities

· IT budgeting

· IT skills, position descriptions, salary ranges and personal performance benchmarks

· Workarounds, temporary fixes and permanent solutions

· Time and resource allocation for problem resolution

Informed about:

· Artefact: Organisational policies, standards and available budget

· Artefact: Reports – Reduction in Incidents due to Problem Management

· Artefact: Reports – Incidents Incorrectly Forwarded to Problem Management

· Artefact: Reports – Completeness of Known Error Data Base

· Artefact: Reports – Reliability of Configuration Management Information

· Artefact: Reports - Problem Management Status

Key results areas:

· Assigning sufficient authority to the problem manager

· Maintaining adequate records and audit trails

· Recording lessons learnt

· Budget control for problem resolution

· Customer satisfaction

Core skills required:

· Business knowledge

· Technical knowledge

· Management skills (including measurement, metrics, analysis and reporting)

· Conflict resolution skills

· Understanding of knowledge management and the learning organisation concepts (especially as they pertain to problems, known errors, and workarounds)

Performance Metrics:

Reduction in overall number of incidents reported

Increase in number of incidents resolved at first level of support

Increase in repeat incidents going to second and third level of support

Reduction in number of incidents escalated to second or third level of support

Reduction in repeat incidents with a similar root cause

Reduction in incidents as a result of end-user training

Reduction in the number of known errors

Integrity of known errors database

Completeness of known errors database

Increase in number of entries about known errors with known responses in database

Percentage of updates to problem records made within severity level requirements

Percentage of problems exceeding approved budget for resolution

Number of unresolved problems