Organisations sometimes stumble at the first hurdle with Problem Management, for one of several reasons:
 
a) Where do we start?
b) Biting off more than they can chew. "This Problem Management book is huge!"
c) Lack of a Problem Management module in their ITSM/Service Desk/CRM toolset.
 
Now, in an ideal world you would like to have an ITSM toolset in place with an integrated Problem Management module, but, and I must stress this, it is not an absolute pre-requisite. So, where do you start, and how can it be broken down so it is not so huge?
 
Well, when you start designing the process, begin with these simple starting points and work on them one by one:
 
1. You can also start by implementing Post Incident Reviews for your Critical/Major/Priority 1 incidents, and make Root Cause Analysis an integral part of that. This is applying a bit of the 80/20 rule, as these incidents tend to be the ones that impact most users.
 
2. You can also make a start on trend analysis without a dedicated tool. From a trend analysis perspective, while you don't need a Problem Management tool, you do need reporting on incidents. The foundation here is getting the incident categories right (those by which you Service Desk categorises the call), and getting your incident resolution categories right.
 
3. Lastly, there's often a lot of knowledge on trends and root causes among your IT staff, but no-one ever asks them! You can build that into the early days of Problem Management to try and get some quick wins and engage the IT staff in Problem Management.
 
You/the Problem Manager will need to define the details of these processes of course, but largely the main thing is to start with these three areas and work to get the buy-in from the rest of IT.
 
Problem Management can make a real difference. There's no better service you can offer than removing the faults that lead to incidents in the first place, so what are you waiting for?