The same user calls repeatedly to the help desk reporting a blue screen of death, does this become a problem until the bsods stop occurring? Additionally, if the problem is corrected by re-imaging the machine, what would be the “root cause?”
This is actually one of my favorite questions. A Problem is defined as an group of Incidents with similar symptoms for which the root cause is unknown. What you have described is definitely a Problem, but the interesting question is “Is this worthy of research by the Problem Management process?”
Just because you have identified a Problem doesn’t mean you want to invest in true Problem Management. Indeed, with the solution of re-imaging the system, you have done no Problem Management. You did Incident Management. Did you ever know what the root cause was? Did you know what component was the cause of the blue screen? No, you just implemented a solution that you knew would probably solve the issue.
Which is a good thing.
The point where you invoke the Problem Management process is where you have determined that it is not cost effective to allow the Incident to reoccur. To ensure this, you must determine what is the root cause of the Incident.
This may involve discovering that the “fix” to the Problem is outside the control of your organization. It could be a fault of the OS, drivers, or other off-the-shelf product for which you can’t implement a fix. In which case the Incident Management solution of re-imaging the PC is the best fix.
But in situations where the resolution is within the scope of your organization (e.g. your in house development group has to create multiple versions of a DLL dependent on what version of anti-virus the client is running), then Problem Management’s job is to submit a RFC to implement the fix.
And that is where Problem Management stops. It is now up to Change and Release Management to approve and implement the fix.
Once Change Management has reviewed that the Release has successfully resolved the Problem, the Problem record can be closed.
If you never venture into the Problem Management process and use Incident Management’s quick fix of re-imaging the PC, the Problem record will remain open.
And again I will say – This is a good thing. It may not be cost justifiable or within the scope of the organization to fully remove the root cause of the Problem.
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