Robert's approach to the question on Problem Management

Use the phrase "in my experience" to cover the gap between the book and your delivery. Be sure that every artifact, term and acronym is properly defined.

As I look at this, I see that part 1 is focused on the discipline. I know that Problem Management has three sub-disciplines, so that seems like a good way to approach part 1.

Part 2 is simply asking for a list of benefits in order to support a justification. I would recommend throwing in a few potential problems as well. Remember, ITIL is never free. There is always a cost, especially at start up. But, the cost can be justified and offset by benefits.

Robert's Outline

• Part 1
  • Problem Control
    • Need a known errors database
    • Best to have one database to avoid redundant efforts
  • Error Control
    • This is going to rely heavily on the vendor
    • Better communications to have single-point-of-contact to vendor
    • Better manageability to have single-point-of-contact to users
  • Proactive
    • Need to document incidents, problems, known errors, resolutions
    • Then do trend analysis
• Part 2
  • Single-point-of-contact vital during rollout
  • Trending to focus on reducing recurrence of incidents
  • Excellent tool for managing the vendor relationship
  • Expect resistance to change from regions who prefer to have their own vendors
  • Going to require one dedicated person, possibly support staff depending on volume and some tools like the Known Errors database - expenses
  • Benefits, accomplish the rollout more effectively and deliver higher quality of service to both internal users and external customers
  • Alternative is to spend the money anyway by pulling regional people away from their defined jobs to be the defacto problem manager for their region and then continue to fund the project manager or other as a vendor coordinator

Note, as I look at this outline, Part 2 is bigger than Part 1, while Part 1 is worth more points. So I will need to write very concisely on Part 2 to save time and expand out my explanations on Part 1 to get more points.