Issue Management

Identifying and Resolving Issues

Always have a plan in place to resolve issues.

In the life cycle of any process, there will almost always be unexpected problems and questions that crop up. That is, there will be “gaps” between the actions (executed by the process and process components) and stakeholders expectations. When these issues arise, you have to be ready to deal with them – or they can potentially affect the outcome of the process. 

The nature of issues

Issues tend to be unpredictable, they can arise with no warning. For example, being unable to find qualified staff is an identifiable risk. However, when one of your staff is in a car accident, and hospitalized for three weeks, that becomes an issue!

So, when it comes to issues, you have to deal with them as they happen.  Ideally, you need an issue resolution process in place, that is, you need Issue Management.

Issues Management

Issues need to be recorded when they happen. When you create (log) an issue, you provide the tool for reporting and communicating what's happening. This is the first step in ensuring that issues are indeed raised, and then investigated and resolved quickly and effectively.

If you don't do this, you risk ignoring issues, or not taking them seriously enough – until it's too late to deal with them successfully. 

One of the key challenges of Issues Management is to resolve the problem quickly and then move on, with as little impact to the process as possible.

You have to be sure to cover all information aspects of recorded issues. This is where you learn for the future. The more you learn about your issues, the better prepared you'll be for the next ones. Recording what you've learned from previous issues, will make it easier to subsequently identify and resolve future issues successfully. This is at the essence of Issue Management.

Issues Management Framework

An issues management framework establishes a defined processes and clear protocols to ensure appropriate action, particularly given the diversity of issues and their potential consequences.

ismPro will support/provide you with a framework for dealing with issues. It will establish how issues are identified, analysed for likelihood and impact, and then managed until the potential for damage to reputation is mitigated.

It will help all stakeholders understand what to do with issues once they've been identified and logged. With this framework in place you’ll have answers to questions like these:

• How will you assign responsibility for resolving the issue? For example, is there one person who handles all technical issues? Who would handle a vendor issue?
• How will you know when to escalate an issue to management or a steering committee?
• Which criteria will determine an issue's priority status?
• Who will set the target resolution date?
• How will issues be communicated within the team?
• How will you identify different issues?
• What specific action has to be taken and who will be responsible?
• What time/effort has been invested in the issue?