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Be proactive like a true pro

30 November 2014 by Robert Falkowitz 1 Comment

Some organizations consider proactive problem management to be the work of resolving problems when they are not currently causing any incidents. This understanding is in direct conflict with an alternative interpretation, wherein proactive problem management concerns the identification and resolution of problems before they have caused any incidents at all.What is truly puzzling about the first understanding of the term “proactive” is that it leaves little room for “reactive” problem management. Sorting this out is useful, because it can help avoid tons of miscommunication. The simplest way of explaining the differences is in the following table:

ActivityInterpretation 1Interpretation 2
Resolving easy incidentsIncident managementIncident management
Resolving complicated, major or hard to resolve incidents“Reactive” problem managementIncident management
Identifying recurring incidentsProactive problem managementReactive problem management
Analyzing and resolving problems that have related incidents, but none that are currently openProactive problem managementReactive problem management
Identifying weaknesses and other risks in production that are likely to cause incidents if unresolved, but have not yet done so? (this probably never gets done)Proactive problem management

Here is a timeline showing a series of events and how they are handled according to interpretation 1 and interpretation 2:

Problem management timeline

My own view of these interpretations is heavily in favor of interpretation 2. I believe that interpretation 1 is just a bunch of rhetoric used by people who are trying to put a better face on their work than it truly merits. It is based on a poor process architecture, where two different processes—incident management and problem management—are used for a single purpose—resolving incidents. This is very bad design. Because interpretation 1 thinks of resolving incidents as being reactive, it therefore considers preventing future incidents—even though in reaction to past incidents—is “proactive”. Interpretation 2 has none of this confusion, is much purer, simpler and easier to manage. I think it is a much more professional understanding.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License.The diagrams in this posting are licensed to you under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Summary
Be proactive like a true pro
Article Name
Be proactive like a true pro
Description
There is a lot of confusion about what proactive problem management is. For some people, it's resolving a problem before it provokes another incident. For others, it means resolving a problem before it provokes any incidents.
Author
Robert S. Falkowitz
Publisher Name
Concentric Circle Consulting
Publisher Logo
Concentric Circle Consulting

Filed Under: Problem Management Tagged With: proactive problem management, problem, reactive problem management

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Comments

  1. Robert FalkowitzMichael Hall says

    1 February 2015 at 10:32

    I have to agree Robert. I was reading along with your commentary thinking that again, problem managers are called in to fill a skills gap in the incident management team (why not just train your incident managers properly?). The you came down on the other side and point out that incident management is perfectly able to resolve incidents without specialised help from problem management. While I rarely agree with people’s definitions of reactive and proactive – who cares? Just solve the problem, don’t stress about how you discovered it – I find I can happily live with this interpretation

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