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Sample Project for Incident Management, Change Management,

and Problem Management.

TechExcel

ITIL Process Guide

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TechExcel ITIL Guide

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Document Description

This document provides verbal descripons for each of the Incident, Change and Problem management processescongured in the sample projects within the TechExcel ServiceWise ITSM soluon. The projects are pre-congured to

implement ITIL and service desk best pracces for managing and tracking daily acvies.

Definitions

Change

The addion, modicaon or removal of anything that could have an eect on IT Services.

Change Advisory Board The Change Advisory Board (CAB)A group of people that advises the Change Manager in the assessment, priorizaon and scheduling of Changes. Thisboard is usually made up of representaves from all areas within the IT Service Provider, the Business, and Third Pares

such as Suppliers. A CAB may consist of the following depending on the type of change:

Change Manager, chairing the process

Relevant IT services staSuppliers, maintainers and developers

Customers and Users

Oce services, department managers and non-IT supporng servicesExperts/technical consultants

Change Manager

The individual that is responsible for assessing the risk and impact of a RFC and ensuring that all required informaon isincluded before sending to the CAB. If the RFC is approved they are also responsible for approving and scheduling the

Change.

Change Owner

The person responsible for performing the work associated with a Request for Change (RFC).

Emergency CAB

A smaller group of individuals and stakeholders that are to be contacted in the event of a serious loss of service to cricaIT Services.

Incident

An unplanned interrupon to an IT Service or a reducon in the quality of an IT Service. Failure of a Conguraon Itemthat has not yet impacted service is also an Incident; for example failure of one disk from a mirror set. The term Incidentis used in the ServiceWise applicaon to idenfy the primary vehicle for work tracking, this represents a task or a set oftasks that must be managed by the Support Team.

Known Error Database

The Known Error Database contains all Known Error Records and applicable soluons, workarounds and pernentinformaon. This database is created and maintained by Problem Management and is used by Incident and ProblemManagement. This consists of What to do if documents and ServiceWise Knowledge arcles.


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Known Error Record

A record containing the details of a Known Error. Each Known Error Record documents the lifecycle of a Known Error,including the Status, Root Cause, Workaround and other relevant data.

Problem

The underlying cause of one or more Incidents. The cause is not usually known at the me the Problem record is createdand the Problem Management process is responsible for further invesgaon and determining the root cause which isdocumented and may be used by change management and incident management teams.

Request for Change

A Request For Change (RFC) is synonymous with a Change Ticket. This represents a proposed Change to the ITenvironment.

Service

Refers to an IT Service provided to one or more customers by an IT Service Provider. An IT Service is based on the use ofInformaon Technology and support the Customers Business Processes.

Steering Commiee

A group of people made up of management, corporate IT, customers and members of the IT Service Provider(s). Thisgroup provides addional direcon and assessment on large-scale RFCs which include a fundamental shi in IT Servicesor infrastructure.

Ticket/Record

An individual Incident, Change or Problem Management record in ServiceWise, usually preceded by the project thatit resides in. For example an Incident Ticket, Change Ticket or Problem Ticket would be a record in the Incident,Change or Problem Management projects respecvely.


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Incident Management

CreateLinkedChange

Red Arrows indicate that thetransition is done automaticallyusing Inter-project Automation.

Resolved -Closed

Resolved -Closed

Reopen

Incident

New

Pending Change

Change Complete

Submit

Request Change

Request Change

Change

Implemented

Change Rejected

Level1

Escalate

to Level 2

Level2

UnderInvestigation

Report Problem

Resolved -

NotifyEmployee

Resolved -

NotifyEmployee

Resolved -NotifyEmployee

Resolved -

Closed

Resolved -Closed

Resolved -Notify Employee

Resolved -Notify Employee


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Incident Management

This process should be used whenever an issue is reported where there is a loss of service or lack of service. Forexample, a user that receives an error message when trying to run an applicaon they have never had problems with in

the past or a user that cannot access a new web site would each be examples of individual Incidents.

Accurate recording and tracking of these Incidents is important for the following reasons:

1. For future reference by support personnel if the issue occurs again.

2. To determine the ownership and total work performed by the support group and so jusfy addional resources andtraining.

3. To idenfy areas of concern requiring regular eort and warrant addional resources to either correct or migatethese problems.

4. To provide complete informaon required for eecve problem management.

5. When Service Level Agreements are used, an incident record may be used to track the response and resolve mesdened within the SLA.

New

This is the state that a new cket starts when informaon regarding the Incident is entered. This is accessible to anyoneusing ServiceWise.

Available Acons:

Submit

This creates a record within the Incident Management project. Customers will not be permied to submit Ticketsto specic members of EMS Support. This is to ensure that a Ticket is not accidentally assigned to an individualthat is not available to work on it.

Level 1

This is the starng point for all ckets aer they have been submied. Tickets are submied to either a group folder (orqueue) which will be accessible to all members of the support group or directly to an individual based on denable auto-roung criteria. The auto-roung feature allows ckets to be directly routed to a subject maer expert based upon thecategorizaon of the cket.

A support group folder may be the rst owner for new ckets and a team member will be responsible for any unassignedckets in this state. They have the opon of either invesgang the Incident themselves or forwarding it to a morequalied member of the support team if this would be more ecient.

Before any further acons are taken, the following informaon regarding the Incident should be entered if it has notbeen already:


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Incident category

Urgency (What is the impact to IT service?)

Priority (How soon does it need to be resolved?)

Name of the person and/or group that reported the incident

Descripon of the symptoms

Any troubleshoong acvies already performed

The complete categorizaon of the incident will automacally apply the appropriate Service Level Agreement if the SLAfeature is enabled.

This does not preclude other members of the support team from assigning ckets to themselves if they feel that they are

able to be of assistance.

Available Acons:

Escalate to Level 2

This acon is used when:

The error is not in the KEDB and has no resoluon.

No procedure documents (What to do if) or this has been aempted and was unsuccessful in resolving theIncident.

The support team has invesgated the cket and has been unable to resolve the cket within the me

frame allowed. For example, within 24 hours of the Incident being reported. This escalaon may also be doneautomacally using the Auto-Escalaon feature. Auto-Escalaons may be done based on me triggers when acket is open too long, no progress has been taken, or it is nearing a dened SLA threshold.

Request Change

This acon is used when a change to a Conguraon Item is required in order to resolve the incident. Performingthis acon will move the Incident to the Pending Change state and create a new Change Request record linkedto the original Incident record.

For more informaon on items that require a change please refer to the secon of this document dealing withthe Change Management process.

Resolved - Nofy Employee

This acon is performed when the support team is able to restore service to the customer either using knownsteps or through invesgaon and troubleshoong. The support person should verify with the customer thatthey have resolved the issue prior to using this acon.

Resolved - Closed

This acon is included to allow for incorrect Incidents to be removed from the list of Tickets and is available toServiceWise administrators only.


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Level 2

An incident in this state has had inial invesgaon and troubleshoong performed without success. There are nodocumented processes to resolve the Incident or those processes have been aempted without success. Incidents in thi

state should be given a higher priority as there has already been an investment of me where there may sll be a loss ofservice.

Usually an incident that is escalated to Level 2 will be assigned to a new individual that is an expert on the related subjecmaer.

Available Acons:

Request Change

This is performed when the Level 2 support person idenes that a change to a conguraon item is necessaryto resolve the incident.

Performing this acon will automacally move the incident to the Pending Change state and create a newchange request record in the Change Management Project that is linked to the original Incident.

Report Problem

This acon is performed if invesgaon at Level 2 has failed to provide a course of acon that will resolve theincident within a reasonable period of me. For example, 48 hours to 1 week aer the incident has been createdBased on the incident categorizaon and priority and the Service Level Agreement applicable these mes mayvary on a per incident basis.

Performing the Report Problem acon will move the incident to the Under Invesgaon state andautomacally generate a new problem record that is linked to the inial incident record. If the incident isrelated to an exisng problem record (or an exisng known error), then the incident may be linked to theproblem record so that when the problem is resolved, or a workaround is dened, service can be restored to thecustomer.


This acon is performed when the Level 2 support individual is able to restore service to the customer eitherusing known steps or through invesgaon and troubleshoong. The support person should verify with thecustomer that they have resolved the issue prior to using this acon. If the invesgaon and troubleshoong hasled to creaon of new knowledge arcles or How-To informaon the support member may publish this to theknowledge database.

Resolved - Closed

This acon is included to allow for incorrect incidents to be removed from the working list. It is only available to

ServiceWise administrators or support supervisors.

Pending Change

Incidents that are in this state are awaing Change(s) to be completed so that they can be resolved.

Normally, there will be a change request record linked to the incident record if it is in this state. The incident will bemoved to another state automacally once the change request has been completed. Before performing any of theacons below, users should check for linked informaon to determine the current status of any associated change


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records.

Available Acons:

Change Implemented

This acon is performed automacally when a linked change request record is moved to the Change Completestate in the change management workow. Normally, this acon will be performed automacally by ServiceWiseinter-project status automaon sengs.

Change Rejected

This is performed automacally when a proposed change request is rejected by the change management team.The incident record is automacally moved back to Level 2 for further invesgaon and will include visibilityinto any of the change management teams comments, notes, or documents to assist the Level 2 technician.

Under Investigation

Incidents that do not have a resoluon and are the result of a recurring Problem will b placed in this state. The incidentwill be related to a problem record in the Problem Management Project. Once the problem has been resolved, or aworkaround has been idened, the incident will be automacally moved to the Resolved - Nofy Employee state andthe support person responsible for the cket will be noed.

Available Acons:


This acon is taken automacally if a workaround or resoluon is found for the associated Problem.

Change Complete

Incidents in this state have had required changes implemented and now require aenon from the support personresponsible for the cket. This may simply mean contacng the incident submier to verify that that their issue has beenresolved or may involve addional troubleshoong steps to complete required work.

Available Acons:


This acon is performed when the support individual is able to restore service to the customer either usingknown steps or through invesgaon and troubleshoong. The support person should verify with the customerthat they have resolved the issue prior to using this acon.

Resolved - Notify Employee

Incidents in this state indicate that either:

1. The IT Service has been fully restored.

2. The underlying problem causing this cket has been resolved or a workaround has been discovered.


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In the rst case, the individual responsible for the incident should contact the customer to verify that the originalincident has been resolved.

In the second case, where a workaround has been discovered, further acon may be required by the support team toimplement the workaround. The support team should verify with the customer that reported the incident to ensure theservice has been restored.

When the support person has conrmed that service is restored they should indicate that all work is completed in thework log for the incident.

Available Acons:

Resolved - Closed

This closes the incident and makes the incident record read-only. This acon may only be performed by supportdirectors and ServiceWise administrators who should verify that all work, including customer contacts, has beencompleted before closing the cket.

Resolved - Closed

Any incidents in this state are read-only by anyone except support supervisors and applicaon administrators. It isexpected that the incident has been reviewed by a support supervisor who is sased that all required work has beencompleted.

Available Acons:

Reopen Incident

This is only performed when an incident is deemed to be incomplete or reappears aer it is believed to havebeen resolved. The acon can only be performed by support supervisors or ServiceWise administrators.


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Change Management

A change request record should be entered whenever an acon could have an eect on the normal operaon of the ITenvironment. For example, adding a new user to the environment, installing a new applicaon on a server, or enabling a

new port on a network switch.

You do not need to enter a change request record if you are performing troubleshoong steps to restore normal servicein response to an incident. In other words, if you are pung things back to the way they are supposed you are notmaking a change; you are restoring a service. In these cases make notes on the steps that were taken in the incidentrecord. For example, if a user reports that their individual workstaon is frozen and you determine that you must rebootyou may do so without entering a change request for this. However, if an applicaon server requires a reboot, then theacon of reboong may have an eect on large user populaon and requires a change request.

New

This is a preliminary state where the informaon for the change request is entered. At this point, no change record hasactually been created. A new change request will be entered when one of the following acons is performed.

Available Acons:

Submit for Review

This acon should be taken for the majority of changes that require the aenon of the support team. Thisincludes any updates, addions or removal of hardware, soware, user access, processes, agreements, etc. Thismay include aer-hours changes that are performed in response to a call-out.

Urgent RFC

This is to be used for emergency changes that are required to repair a failure (ASAP) in an IT service that hasa large negave impact on the business. The Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB) should be noed sothey are ready to make emergency decisions (see denion of ECAB at the beginning of this document for moreinformaon on the ECAB).

This acon should only be taken in situaons where there is a loss of crical funconality. In most cases thistranslates to a loss of core systems responsible for providing visibility and control of the electrical grid to thesystem operators.

Review and Classification

The majority of Changes will be submied to this state. Once in this state the Change Manager reviews each request anddecides on the appropriate next step.

If necessary the Change Manager may forward the change request record to another member of the changemanagement team they feel would be more knowledgeable with regard to the eects of the change, assigning them therole of the Change Manager.

The Change Manager, or Change Advisory Board, should aempt to perform the following steps while reviewing the RFC

1. Evaluate the change based on the informaon that has been provided. Is it necessary? Is it reasonable?


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2. Verify that the steps to be performed are complete and accurate including updates to the CMDB.

3. Idenfy the risk(s) to the business. The probability that the risk will occur combined with the impact to thebusiness represent the risk category of the change.

4. Verify that a remediaon (recovery or back out) plan has been idened.

5. Determine the priority of the change (low, medium, high, urgent/immediate).

6. Schedule the Change

Available Acons:

Reject Change

This acon should be taken if the RFC is illogical, unfeasible, unnecessary, or incomplete. The party thatsubmied the RFC must be noed along with the reason that the change request has been rejected. If thechange request is a duplicate it may be linked to an exisng change record.

Note that the party that submied the change request is always given the opportunity to defend their requestand it is possible to resurrect a rejected change at a later date if necessary.

CAB Review

A change request should be sent to the Change Advisory Board for further review if:

It is not a roune or standard change and no documented process exists for the change.

The steps to be performed to implement the change are unknown or untested.

There are risks involved or the impacts of the change are unknown.

If there is uncertainty as to whether or not further review is required. It is beer to request further review than

to press forward with the change and have it fail.

A change request record promoted to CAB Review will automacally nofy the appropriate individuals thatshould involved in the change review process.

Implement Change

This acon should be selected if:

This is a standard change with low risk for which a known procedure exists and has been documented.

The Change Owner (individual responsible for the Change) and Change Manager have idened the changeto have a low level of risk and low potenal impact on the IT environment should those risks occur.

Examples of this sort of change could be updang a users security access (with approval), installing a newapplicaon or scheduling a new job.

This acon is also appropriate during aer-hours call-outs from the control center for occasions where it isnecessary to perform a change to resolve an incident. As stated above, you should be condent that the changeis necessary and that the risks and potenal impacts are low before implemenng the change. You should alsodocument the troubleshoong steps that are led you to the change in your Incident.


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Change Advisory Board (CAB) Review

A Change cket in this state is currently under review by one or more individuals to:

Idenfy the risks to IT services inherent in the change.

Correctly classify and determine the potenal impact to the IT environment.

Dene the steps that are required to implement the change.

A CAB review meeng should be performed periodically by the members of the change management support group. Theagenda for this meeng will include:

Review Proposed RFCs

Scheduled changes for the upcoming week

Review incidents encountered over the weekend which may impact upcoming work

Meengs of the CAB can also be requested by the Change Manager or Change Owner in response to high prioritychanges requiring immediate aenon, or to appeal a rejected change.

Available Acons:

Approve Change

This acon should be taken once a plan has been developed to implement the change with minimal risk.

Review

If a change is of signicant scope it may require further review and approval by the IT Steering Commiee.Promoon of a change request to this state may only be done by supervisors or change managers.

Reject Change

See available acons for Review and Classicaons state.

Steering Committee

Changes at this state imply that there could be a fundamental shi in IT infrastructure or signicant allocaon of

resources such that review and input by managers and other stakeholders is required.

Available Acons:

Approve Change

See available acons for CAB Review

Reject Change

See available acons for Review and Classicaons state.


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been no ill eects to exisng services.

QA Testing

Changes in this state are acvely undergoing tesng and review to ensure that the work performed did not causeunforeseen errors or consequences to other services. In short, that any change work tasks performed do not have animpact on the producon environment. For example, aer operang system patch is installed on a server it is a goodidea to check the applicaons that server is supporng to verify that they are sll accessible.

Available Acons:

QA Tesng Failed

This acon should be performed if it is discovered that IT services have been aected as a result of the work thatwas done in the Implementaon state. This will return your change to the implementaon state so that you canthen perform the steps necessary to implement your back out plan and restore the IT Service.

Change Review

Use this acon once you have conrmed that the steps performed during your change have not resulted in errorbeing introduced.

Change Review

Several acvies are performed in this state. First, a determinaon should be made as to whether the change producedthe desired outcome. Was the problem xed? Was the desired funconality introduced? If not, this may indicate thatmore work is required or the change should be rolled back.

All documentaon, drawings, lists, etc. should be updated to reect the work that was done at the implementaon stateand the newly created knowledge items should be made available.

Finally, a review meeng is held with the support team. During this me the individual(s) responsible for the workperformed should report on the status and success of the change to ensure that the support team is aware of the changeand are given a nal opportunity to make comments or point out addional steps that should be taken (for example,documents or procedures that need to be updated).

Available Acons:

Rollback

This acon is performed if it is determined that the change did not have the desired outcome or did not resolve

the targeted issue. Even if no noceable negave eects result from the implementaon of a change, it shouldbe rolled back to a known stable state. This acon does not require that a review by the support team becompleted rst.

Change Complete

This acon should be performed once all work regarding the change has been completed. This includes, reviewwith the support team and customers, updates to documentaon, and updates to the CMDB.


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CAB Emergency Change (EC)

An RFC in this state is required to repair a failure to an IT service that has a large negave impact on the business. Fromthe perspecve of our group, this would most likely represent a loss of core funconality or business services.

If the required change requires input or permission from the CAB but the full CAB cannot be assembled the EmergencyCAB (ECAB) should be contacted to make emergency decisions.

Available Acons:

Implement Change

Change Completed

A Change in this state is read-only and is available for reference purposes only. All work regarding this Change,whether it was successful or not, is considered to be complete.

If the Change was requested in response to an Incident or a Problem it will be moved to a new state dependingon whether or not the Change was successful.


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Problem Management

Create Problem Record

Classify Problem

Investigate

Request Change

Known Error -

Workaround

Known Error

Request

Change

Change Implemented

Successfully

New

New Problem

Classification

Known Error

InvestigationAnd Analysis

Pending Change

Problem Closed

Unsuccessfully

Resolved


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Problem Management

The Problem Management process allows the support team to track sources of recurring incidents that need to beaddressed. Invesgaon is then performed to diagnose the root-cause of the incidents and nd a soluon. It also helps

to ensure that these soluons are implemented via the correct channels; in other words, through the use of the changemanagement process.

A problem record should be created when:

Support sta suspects or idenes an unknown cause of one or more incidents. This results in a problem registraon.It may be immediately clear that an incident was caused by a major problem in which case a new problem record iscreated.

Analysis of an incident by a support team member reveals an underlying problem.

Automac tracing of an infrastructure or applicaon error in which a tool indicates a need for a problem registraon.

A supplier reports a problem that needs to be resolved.

Analysis of incidents shows a trend that supports creaon of a problem record so that the underlying cause can beinvesgated further.

New

As with the other workows, a problem in this state is in the process of being entered. While in this state, the creatorof the problem record should enter a full descripon of the service that is lost, error messages, how to recreate it if

possible, and any other relevant informaon that has been obtained through inial troubleshoong steps. If the problembeing created is linked to an incident much of this informaon may already be available there.

Available Acons:

Create Problem Ticket

Performing this acon will add your problem cket to the ServiceWise database and begin the problemmanagement workow.

New Problem

This is the default state for any problems that submied. Problems in this state are inially assigned to the problemmanagement or second level support group folder instead of an individual. If the individual that originally submied theproblem believes that a parcular support team member should be working on this problem then they can forward it tothem or assign is using the Classify Problem acon.

It is recommended that support team members responsible for development and maintenance review the list ofproblems in this state regularly and take ownership of any problems that are under their area of responsibility.

Available Acons:

Classify Problem


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This acon is performed when an individual from the problem management team takes ownership of a problemor assigns it to an individual for further work. This requires that the person performing the acon assign anowner.

Classification

At this state, the individual that has been made the owner of the problem record reviews the informaon entered anddetermines whether they are the most appropriate person to invesgate it. During this process they should categorizethe problem according to its source.

In this state, the problem should be given a priority in the same way that incidents and changes are. Similar to incidentsand changes, Operaonal Level Agreements or Service Level Agreements may be assigned automacally based onthe classicaon. Consider the frequency and impact of the related incidents, and how seriously the aect userseecveness.

Available Acons:

Invesgate

This acon is performed when the owner of the cket begins acvely invesgang it.

Investigation and Analysis

Problems in this state are currently under invesgaon by the owner of the problem record. The problem may beforwarded to dierent members in the support team where required unl the underlying cause of the problem has beenidened.

A problem remains in this state unl a workaround or a change is idened to restore the service.

Available Acons:

Known Error - Workaround

This acon is performed if a method is idened to restore service to a customer experiencing the associatederror, but does not eliminate the possibility of addional Incidents from occurring as a result of the problem.When performing this acon, the problem owner must document the workaround steps and publish them forfuture reference by support individuals.

Request Change

This acon should be taken if the problem owners invesgaon causes them to idenfy that a change isrequired to resolve the problem. This will result in the problem being moved to the Pending Change state andlinked to a new change record that is automacally created.

Pending Change

Problems in this state are awaing the results of a requested change. The problem should have a change record linked toit where more informaon can be obtained on the status of the change.

Available Acons:


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