Problem Management Roles and Responsibilities | Atlassian (2024)

Problem management is about more than just finding and fixing incidents. Real problem management lies in identifying and understanding the underlying causes of an incident as well as identifying the best method to eliminate that root cause.

That’s why effective problem management efforts consist of teams operating under clear roles and responsibilities. Team members understand what the roles are, what each person is responsible for, and who is in each role during a problem investigation.

Here are a few of the most common problem management roles. It’s important to understand that not every team will operate with every role on this list. And these aren’t necessarily permanent roles. Instead, think of them as designations for a team that comes together to work on a particular problem.

Problem manager

The problem owner manages the overall process for a specific problem. They coordinate and direct all facets of the problem management effort, including bringing the right teams, tools, and information together. The problem manager may also delegate subtasks to other team members as they see fit.

Also called: Problem owner, Major Incident Manager

Process owner

The process owner is responsible for the overall health and success of the team’s problem management process. They oversee evolution and development of the process, as well as team member training and onboarding.

Also called: Process manager, process coordinator

Service owner

The service owner is responsible for defining ongoing operations and health of the service. This can include measuring and reporting on the value of changes, enhancements, planned downtime, training, documentation, and more.

Also called: Service leader, product manager

Service desk agent

Front-line support for your service desk. The service desk agent is often the first to notice and report an incident or problem. The agent is often also the first person to notice that several unique incidents all relate to a greater problem.

Also called: Agent, Service agent, Support Agent, Help desk agent, Service desk analyst

Tech lead

An individual familiar with the impacted service experiencing a problem or incident. Often a developer or engineer, the tech lead can dive into recent code changes to see what root causes may be contributing to the problem.

Also called: Technical lead, subject matter expert, on-call engineer, developer, software developer, Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

Stakeholders

Stakeholders can be whoever needs high-level info on the problem but isn’t directly involved in the problem management process. This can be anyone from adjacent teams, to customers, and organizational leaders.

Also called: Customers, executive teams, vendors, end users, business teams

Problem Management Roles and Responsibilities | Atlassian (2024)

FAQs

What are the main roles in problem management? ›

Problem investigation and diagnosis. Identifying underlying causes of incidents and preventing recurrences. Developing workarounds or other solutions to incidents. Submitting change requests to Change Enablement as required to eliminate known problems.

What is the function of problem management? ›

Problem Management is an IT service management process tasked with managing the life cycle of underlying "Problems." Success is achieved by quickly detecting and providing solutions or workarounds to Problems in order to minimize the impact on the organization and prevent a recurrence.

What skills do problem managers have? ›

Companies depend on managers who can solve problems adeptly. Although problem-solving is a skill in its own right, a subset of seven skills can help make the process of problem-solving easier. These include analysis, communication, emotional intelligence, resilience, creativity, adaptability, and teamwork.

What is the role of a problem management analyst? ›

Problem management analyst provides expertise in the full range of technology controls practices: information risk management, business resiliency, IT control policies, problem, incident and change management processes etc.

What is the RACI for problem management? ›

A Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI) diagram (or RACI matrix) is used to describe the roles and responsibilities of the various teams or people that are responsible for delivering a project or operating a process.

What are the roles and responsibilities of problem management in ITIL? ›

Problem managers perform a wide range of responsibilities; the most important ITIL problem manager roles and responsibilities include: Monitoring project progress to verify that deadlines are met, budgets are adhered to, and objectives are fulfilled.

What are the 2 types of problem management? ›

Reactive problem management is concerned with solving problems in response to one or more incidents. Proactive problem management is concerned with identifying and solving problems and known errors before further incidents related to them can occur again.

What is an example of problem management process? ›

This is a proactive approach that allows you to understand what led to the incident at the same time you work to resolve it. For example, resolving an incident in software requires identifying poor code (the cause), and then developing replacement code to avoid further incidents (the fix).

What is key step in problem management process? ›

The first step in problem management is to identify the problems that need to be addressed. You can use various sources of information, such as incident reports, feedback, audits, or monitoring tools, to find out what are the common or critical issues that affect your stakeholders or customers.

How can I improve my problem management skills? ›

Hopefully, they'll also help you look at problem solving from a different, solutions focused perspective.
  1. Identity and understand the right problem. ...
  2. Research the systems and practices behind the problem. ...
  3. Visualise the problem. ...
  4. Brainstorm creative solutions. ...
  5. Identify the best answer.

What are the 7 problem-solving techniques? ›

Here are seven-steps for an effective problem-solving process.
  • Identify the issues.
  • Understand everyone's interests.
  • List the possible solutions (options)
  • Evaluate the options.
  • Select an option or options.
  • Document the agreement(s).
  • Agree on contingencies, monitoring, and evaluation.
Jul 11, 2023

What are the six problem-solving skills? ›

Define the problem, brainstorm solutions, analyze your options, choose a solution, create a plan and then evaluate your plan, as this is a simple, step-by-step way to overcome business challenges and obstacles.

What is a major incident and Problem Manager? ›

As an Incident and Problem Manager you will ensure that customers problems and incidents are resolved effectively and efficiently, and that the root causes are identified and eliminated to prevent recurrence. Client Details Everything about CSL is de...

What are the 3 management roles? ›

To do their jobs, managers assume these different roles. No manager stays in any one role all of the time, but shifts back and forth. These roles are leadership (or interpersonal), informational, and decision making.

What are the three main categories of management roles? ›

A role is a set of behavioral expectations, or a set of activities that a person is expected to perform. Managers' roles fall into three basic categories: informational roles, interpersonal roles, and decisional roles. These roles are summarized in Table 6.5.

What are the three phases of problem management? ›

It involves three phases such as problem identification, problem control and error control.

What are the 5 roles and functions performed by managers? ›

At the most fundamental level, management is a discipline that consists of a set of five general functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling.

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