“The purpose of the Problem Management practice is to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents and by managing workarounds and known errors. (ITIL® 4) ” One of the ways that Problem Management reduces the likelihood and impact of incidents is by making changes via the Change Enablement practice. Given the benefits, it’s a wonder more organizations don’t have highly capable and well-integrated Problem Management, Incident Management, and Change Enablement practices in their organizations. One reason could be misconceptions about the Problem Management practice, which we explore in our blog Misunderstood and Misused - A Rant About Problem Management . Another reason could be the inability to support these practices with an integrated toolset that includes a solid Configuration Management System (CMS), as configuration information supports the activities of all these practices. Of course, before we talk about tools,...

This blog was written in 2015. The OSA class was sunsetted along with all of ITILv3.  For a more recent perspective, visit our latest article on the importance of modern operational practices and the ITIL Practice Manager path on How to Align ITSM with Organizational Goals: A Step-by-Step Guide What if we did not build an operational support system to meet current business requirements?  That might sound a bit outrageous and contradictory to everything we have learned.  If you are a service provider, then you are aware that what we consider premium service support today could be accepted as the norm and sometimes can be outdated before it becomes a reality. The key to sustaining underpinning operations for any industry is in the constructs of the system. If we build a system to provide what the customer and business outcomes require now, then that is what we will have. The likelihood is that we will have a system that provides for a service that will ren...