Process terms and definitions

There are several key terms related to problem management, including problem, root cause(s), known error, workaround, permanent solution, and closure code. In this section, you will learn about the definitions of these terms.

Problem

A problem is defined as the cause of incidents or abnormal behavior exhibited by a product or service. It could be a situation where the service is working and continues to work but something is going on that cannot be explained. It could be that a major incident has occurred and the service provider has restored the service but the impact was significant enough that the customer does not want it to happen again, so they may request a problem be raised to address the error. It could be an instance where the service desk has identified multiple occurrences of the same incident and the management team wants these incidents eliminated permanently. In many reactive cases, the incident is the driver for a problem record to...