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Problem Management Severity Codes

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by troy_mckenna

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I have worked in an IT Department for 3 different companies that provide Financial and Banking Services.

There are many complex systems and internal customers.

There have been many lengthy discussions on how to rate the severity
of a problem.

What criteria to consider or measure?

I have done some research and have never found any really good methods for rating the severity of a problem.

I believe ther eis no answer that will be 100% correct as all sites are different. I am looking to find a method that will at least remove 90% of the discussions and therefore get agreement on the method from the majority.

It would be very helpful to have some clear severity guidelines for Problem
process participants and Internal customers, who often argue that their
problem should be higher than it is.

Is there anyone that has a good process and guidelines for Problem Severity assessments for a similar IT Department. (Financial/Banking)

regards

Troy McKenna

4 replies

by jimbb

The helpdesk system we used to use in a previous life had two codes for each problem: severity and priority. One indicated how bad the damage is (can't print at all, just a change in colourshade on the screen, PC freezes from time to time), the other showed the impact on daily work (can still work, cannot work, entire team is bothered, entire team cannot work).
This made it also easier to explain to customers why one problem was treated before another. Note: easier, not easy. Some people believe the sun rotates around their *ss...

Jim

by james r linn

we often debate this as well, but here is our method.

Severity 1: Major service outage. Big hit to company productivity(ie effects many users). Risk of major revenue loss. These are typically major network router goes down, Virus attack, Finanicals app goes down at month end. Senior IT Management notified immediately

Severity 2: Minor outage. Effects major user(executive) or processes of small department. Examples - business web server down, executive can't use computer at all, minor financial app goes down.

Severity 3: Standard Problem report. User can't use an app, minor PC problem

Severity 4: Service request - upgrades of HW/SW, installation of new equipment

Severity 5: Information requests

Hope that helps

by mhubbard

For what it's worth... I'll post ours. I'm in a company with over 10,000 users. I like our Severity Schedule (seems to work for the business as well):

Severity 1 - (Highest impact) Service impact to an ENTIRE facility, business unit, or system.

Severity 2 - (High impact) Service impact to a PORTION of a business unit, or facility; Or entire team/business unit is missing a PORTION of a critical component or application

Severity 3 - (Moderate impact) INDIVIDUAL is unable to perform jobfunctions

Severity 4 - (Low impact) INDIVIDUAL is able to perform job function with a work around or some minor inconvenience.

I can email you the full sev schedule with descriptions, resolution service level, escalation rules.. etc. Just drop me a line if you'd like it...

michael_hubbard@gap.com

by debbiesch7238568

Michael,

I would be very interested in reviewing your Sev schedule, specificly your escalation rules,procedure for communication to management as well as users during system outages.

Thanks
Deborah

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