Pain Value Analysis: Where to Get Information???

[dagwood]

Hi, All.

ITIL indicates that Pain Value Analysis is a tool to use for Problem Management (I'm a Problem Manager). However, I can find nothing on the Web to show me real-world examples, or provide any good information. All I've found are overviews of how it might work, and they're not really all that consistent.

Can someone please provide a suggestion of where I may be able to find some good information on PVA that will actually teach me something that I can apply in the real world?

Thanks,

dagwood

[Diarmid]

I've never heard of PVA or of Pain Value Analysis, but I assume that it refers to the costs of soldiering along without resolving the problem. It is probably no more precise than RCA which is certainly a vague concept as applied to IT service management.

I doubt if it is a science - most of these slick phrases are not amenable to formal procedural definition at any great depth.

Probably it is just a clever phrase to say look at the costs, now and in the future and use what you find to help you determine the upper justifiable cost of resolution and the priority to give to the problem vis a vis other problems and other uses of your resources.
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[dagwood]

Well that's sort of disappointing. In the ITIL 2011 book they give an overview of PVA, including the scoring method (a formula) as if it's some kind of standard. Conceptually, seems like it's just a way to assess impact, but I was interested to see some real world examples of how that scoring method (formula) has been applied.

Anyway, thanks for the response, much appreciated.

dagwood

[Diarmid]

Cost and risk.

What else is there?

Since what your organization considers to be a cost or a risk differs from others beyond the generic, it is easier to get it right if you develop an approach in consultation with your customers.

By all means design a formula or matrix or whatever if it will help to resolve comparisons between very disparate types of service or problem, but that should only need to be applied in the decision making process when you have conflict for resources between high risk/high cost problems. More generally its role would be documentary.

I would have thought (hoped and expected, actually) that what is in the ITIL book is an example, unless it is so generic as to be nothing more than glaringly obvious. Unfortunately I have no access to the newest editions and so I cannot look at it myself.
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[24sa]

PAIN Value Analysis is the Technique used to determine the Pain of an problem in the production Environment. PVA is one of the helping technique for deciding the Priority of a problem.

PAIN value is claculated in terms of---
1) Numbers of user affeced
2)Number of services affected
3) Effected Zone or business Unit
4) Business lose/damage due the the Problem (In term of the Revenue)
The formula or weightage of these parameter can differ from organization to organization.


I hope , the Concept is clear now. Any query , feel free to ask.