I recently had an article published by the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) of Australia on what Kepner-Tregoe problem solving and decision making offers to ITIL Problem Management.

So far, one of the most useful concepts from KT is the use of a ‘deviation’ to determine whether you do in fact have a ‘problem’. A deviation is defined as the difference between an expected and actual condition – such as a server load twice that of normal, or a host being unresponsive when it should be up. If there is no ‘deviation’, then you must question whether you really have a ‘problem’. This is useful for distinguishing between development requests / enhancement requests and true ‘problems’.

Other posts you may enjoy:

• Kepner Tregoe: Is it useful for ITIL Problem Management?
• The benefits of describing ITIL incidents in object-deviation format