Problem solving tips for helpdesk personnel
| Home | 1. Symptoms | 2. Examine the evidence | 3. Confirm everything | 4. Research | 5. Postulate |
| 6. Identify the problem | 7. Provide a solution | 8. Confirm the solution | 9. Communicate & record | Useful links | |
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Examine the Evidence
What evidence is relevant? Do you have enough evidence? These are two key questions when problem solving but you aren't going to know the answers to them until you start postulate possible causes and want to test them further.
Experience may sometimes tell you that certain facts are irrelevant. This is good, and will help you concentrate on what you think is relevant, BUT, don't forget about them and keep an open mind.
Your biggest tool for gathering evidence is of course your question and answer sessions with the user, but there are other tools which you can use:
Filemon is a great utility which logs all file activity. Set it running, the go to the problem program and generate the error. Stop Filemmon and look at the log. It generates a great deal of information but it is very easy to see problems.
Event logs: Most operating systems have both application and event logs. Check these to see if anything is relevant.