# Problem Management*

# Glossary

A problem is the unknown root cause of one or more incidents, often identified as a result of multiple similar incidents.

A known error is an identified root cause of a problem.

A workaround is a temporary way of overcoming technical difficulties (such as incidents or problems).

# Overview

The objective of problem management is to minimize the impact of problems on the organization by identifying the root cause of the problem at hand. It aims to prevent reoccurrence of a problem.

# Operational Relationships

Problem management works with change management to ensure fixes are properly tested and approved. Once the fix is approved, change management will deploy the fix, and the fix will be marked as completed in both the change management and problem management processes.

If anything were to go wrong with the release, incident and problem management would need to be involved to fix whatever went wrong (if it happened once, this would be more of an incident; if it happened several times, this would be more of a problem).