What is a workaround in ITIL?

The definition of a workaround is a solution identified that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which the resolution is not yet available. Some workarounds reduce the likelihood of an incident until the resolution is provided fully.

A workaround is vital when preventing an incident from occurring and becomes a permanent way of dealing with some problems when resolving the problem is not beneficial because of financial or resource reasons.

Problem Management

What is ITIL problem management?

Problem management offers the ability to identify and manage problems efficiently by putting measures in place, to ensure underlying issues are addressed and prevented.

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Within the organisation, the problem will remain as a known error and will be documented so that individuals can apply it should a related incident occur.

It's important that every documented workaround should include a clear definition of the symptoms to which it applies. It would be expected that any individual could carry out the workaround who is required to resolve an incident. Some incidents can have a workaround application that can be automated. In other instances, a way to find a fix for the error needs to be identified.

Error Control

Error control manages the activities of known errors, which are problems where diagnosis and analysis have been carried out to determine the known error. Normally, it means that faulty components have been identified as the source of the issue.

Error control also has a relationship with change control where solutions are identified may result in a change request for implementation of a solution. This has to of course be weighed up in terms of cost, risks and benefits.

What is ITIL change management?

‘A monkey in a wrench, fly in the ointment, pain in the ass’.

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On a regular basis, error control should re-assess the status of known errors that have not been resolved. The overall impact needs to customers needs to be measured in terms of cost and availability of permanent resolutions taking into account the effectiveness of the workarounds currently in place.

Workarounds should be evaluated each time they are implemented as there may be room for improvement. Problem management activities are very closely related to incident management.

What is ITIL Incident Management?

Under the ITIL Framework, an incident is referred to as an unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of service. What does Incident Management do? Incident Management’s purpose is to minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operations as quickly as…

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As much as both problem and incident management are designed to work together within the value chain, activities carried out by these two functions may complement each other. When investigating the causes of an incident problem management might lead to the resolution of the incident. This could also conflict and compromise an SLA (Service Level Agreement) on an incident if there is a delay in actions to restore service.

Interfaces between best practices

The activities of problem management can identify, assess and control risks in any of the four dimensions of service management as mentioned below.

• Organization & People.
• Information & Technology.
• Partners & Suppliers.
• Value Streams & Processes.

In order to be proactive, it is useful to work with risk management and involve the tools and techniques needed for problem management. Problem management is often unable to resolve issues within its own scope and relies on other functions to resolve the problem. Change control will carry out post-implementation reviews and problem management can participate, however, approving and implementing changes is out of scope for the problem management practice. The output from this practice is to include documentation concerning workarounds and known errors.  

Problem management can help identify and improve opportunities in all four dimensions of service management. Problem management can also keep information in a knowledge management system to help identify, diagnose and resolve issues. Solutions can also be looked upon as improvement opportunities which will be included in a continual improvement register (CIR).

Resolving problems relies on the knowledge and experience of staff members rather than procedures. Individuals responsible for diagnosing problems often need the ability to understand complex systems and evaluate how different failures might have occurred. Training and mentoring are key to enabling this activity to be successful as a best practice in the organization