Understanding The Problem We Are Trying To Solve

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Quite often, IT teams tend to jump into solution mode without clearly understanding the issue, clarifying the issue, or diagnosing the issue. The lack of a proper understanding and diagnosis can lead to delayed resolution times, increased impact on the business, and poor client experience.

Many times, issues that span multiple domains and teams can present themselves as complex and lead to delays in a proper diagnosis. Issues that exhibit symptoms that can have multiple causes or contributing factors can also delay the diagnosis and resolution times. Leveraging a differential diagnosis technique, where, through the process of elimination, the potential cause can be identified, can help to accelerate the identification and subsequent resolution of the issue in a much timelier manner.

The following is a guiding principle in understanding the problem we are trying to solve.

Step 1 - Define the Problem (e.g. Ageing Backlog)

A problem is any deviation from an expected norm. That is, any event resulting in a loss or potential loss of the availability or performance of a managed IT resource or its supporting environment. (This includes errors related to systems, networks, hardware, software, and applications. This can also include problems identified during the implementation of (failed) changes. The recognition of problems can come from any point in the environment and can be identified using a variety of automated and non-automated methods.

Clearly identify and describe the problem.

1 - Client dissatisfaction due to the length of time being taken to resolve the issues
2 - Tickets being placed on SLA Hold to avoid SLA impact
3 - Tickets in a Queued state, indicating delays in picking up tickets and working on them
4 - Lack of updates to client resulting in client dissat and status calls by the client to find out what is happening
5 - Impact on client business. i.e. if new employees are not onboarded in a timely manner. Risk to client business if terminated employees are not offboarded in a timely manner
6 - Backlog tickets being prematurely closed to avoid SLA misses

Many more questions need to be asked to define and better understand the problem.

As you can see, you can't solve something which you do not understand. Before any technology and tool can be used, you have to use your probing skills and domain experience to understand what it is you will be solving.