When someone is assigned a problem, time needs to be reserved in their schedule to research the problem to find the root cause and come up with possible solutions. It is advisable to schedule this time as soon as possible, because when a problem is properly addressed the number of incidents reported and time needed to solve the incidents will go down. This makes sure that the load on the service desk does not increase and hopefully even decreases over time. When problem handling is a priority in an ICT organization the support services become more pro-active and overall service quality increases.

Apart from time and priority, the person assigned to the problem needs more to be able to find the root cause. The first thing to do when analyzing a problem is to go through the steps needed to reproduce it in a clean test environment. Once the exact minimal steps needed to reproduce the problem are clear, attention to what exactly is happening will become more focused. It is far more likely that the actual root cause can be found now that the problem is understood more clearly. During this testing the problem description and other information should be updated regularly.

Once the assignee believes the root cause is found, his or her hypothesis should be tested by objective means if possible or alternatively by talking to colleagues to discuss the findings and hypothesis for the root cause.