Problem Management is a reactive and a proactive process.
The reactive aspect of Problem Management does not require immediate response. It is worthwhile
setting aside time during the week to devote to Problem Management as it requires careful thought
and cannot be hurried. The technician will need to be left undisturbed to continue with the process
and should not be required to be in attendance for incidents. This approach should ensure an
effective result from the process and will benefit the school.
The proactive aspect is to perform monitoring of equipment and analysis of incidents. The results of
monitoring should be analysed to detect potential problems and provide a solution that can be
implemented before failure. An example of this is to monitor disk space usage to remove temporary
files, to archive files and to cleanup disks before they become full and create network wide
problems.
Checking logged incidents can show trends such as printing problems where one printer often fails
to complete printing and will print text but not pictures. It could be that this call is only logged
occasionally but is actually taking up lots of peoples time when they realise - 'that printer can't do
this type of print'. Problem analysis may indicate that a small memory upgrade to the printer
maybe required or that it will print the picture if it is a different file type. Ultimately getting the best
use out of the printer may avoid the need to replace the printer and reduce costs.
