Instrumentos utilizados para entrevistar a los usuarios

Although symptoms and root cause(s) may vary when unplanned outages occur, unplanned outages happen due to changes made in the technology environment (Marquis, 2009). Although Morrill, Beard, and Clitherow (2008) identified only six causes of unplanned

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outages, this researcher confirms (O‘Callaghan & Mariappanadar, 2006; O‘Callaghan &

Mariappanadar, 2008) the work of Enriquez, Brown, and Patterson (2002) who reported there are, in fact, seven causes of unplanned outages. For a comparison of the two lists, see Table 4-1.

Table 4-1. Lists of Unplanned Outages Lists of Unplanned Outages

Morrill, Beard, and Clitherow (2008) Enriquez, Brown, and Patterson (2002) Design Error In Hardware or Software Acts of Nature

Environmental Events. Hardware

Human-Caused Disasters Humans Inside a Corporation Natural Disasters and Accidents Humans Outside a Corporation User/Operator Accident, Inexperience,

Malice

Software

Physical Breakage System Overload

Vandalism

Though evident that both lists attempt to identify causes of unplanned outages, Enriquez, Brown, and Patterson (2002) cite clear and distinct categories. These seven types of unplanned outages can occur in any combination; therefore, any unplanned outage may be the result of any combination of the seven types of unplanned outages. This can be validated by using Kramp‘s factorial expression, n! (Hayes, 2007). See Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1. Factorial equation

Applying the factorial equation where N = 7, 7! equals 5,040. In all instances, the factorial of a non-negative number is the product of all positive integers equal to and less than n. In the case of the seven types of unplanned IT outages, therefore, n! is equivalent to 5,040 different unplanned outage combinations. Although unplanned outages should be avoided, or minimised, through appropriate duplication and redundancy (Wang, 2007), restoring service from an excess of 5,000 root causes can be time consuming. There is a direct relationship between an unplanned outage and the time taken to restore the service lost. Lowering MTRS directly improves the user experience of system availability and directly reduces the cost to the company that experiences the unplanned outage (Fox, 2002). Computers will always crash (Fox, 2003). This leads to Hypothesis 5 (H₅), which states there will be a significant difference between unplanned outage types and their respective MTRS.

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Although research has been performed focusing on continuous availability and high availability of computer systems (Fox & Patterson, 2002; Radhakrishnan et al., 2008), limited research exists on determining avenues to minimise the amount of time required to restore service when an unplanned outage occurs. The researcher argues that the characteristics displayed by incident managers are moderated by the incident managers‘ approach to solving problems to attain an MTRS for unplanned outages. Hypothesis 6 (H6) states that the use of a problem-focused approach or a solution-focused approach to restore service moderates the relationship between characteristics displayed by incident managers and the attained MTRS from an unplanned outage.

A review of the pilot study results, along with the research questions initiated when this work was undertaken led to establishing six hypotheses in this research. For ease of reference, both the hypotheses and the research questions from which they were derived are provided here:

Research Question 1

What are the dominant characteristics displayed by incident managers when they work to restore service that has occurred due to an unplanned outage?

Hypothesis₁

Incident managers will display significantly different characteristics when they restore service from an unplanned outage.

Research Question 2

What are the different problem-solving approaches used by incident managers when they work to restore service that has been lost due to an unplanned outage?

Hypothesis₂

There will be a significant difference in the approaches used by incident managers to solve problems when unplanned outages occur.

Hypothesis₃

There will be a significant relationship between the characteristics displayed by an incident manager and the use of a solution-focused approach while working to restore service when unplanned outages occur.

Hypothesis₄

That there will be a significant relationship between the characteristics displayed by an incident manager and the use of a problem-focused approach while working to restore service when unplanned outages occur.

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Research Question 3

What relationship exists, if any, between the dominant characteristics displayed by incident managers when an unplanned outage occurs, taking into account the problem-solving approaches they use, and the time to restore service they attain?

Hypothesis5

There will be a significant difference between unplanned outage types and their MTRS.

Hypothesis₆

The use of a problem-focused approach or a solution-focused approach to restore service will moderate the relationship between characteristics displayed by incident managers and their attained MTRS from an unplanned outage.

These hypotheses were tested in the main study and allowed a review of the relationships between the independent variable (characteristics displayed), the dependent variable (MTRS) and the moderating variable (approach-to-solving-problems). The analyses performed in the main study are presented in the following sections.

4.2. Main Study

The seven characteristics examined and the two approaches-to-solving-problems examined, investigated in the main study, are shown in Figure 4-2, the KOZADAR Research Model, which purports that there is a relationship not only between the characteristics displayed by incident managers and the attained MTRS, but that this relationship is moderated by on the problem-solving approach they use that allows them to attain an MTRS.

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Figure 4-2. The KOZADAR Research Model, Detailed

Using the characteristics as the independent variable in the research and the MTRS attained as the dependent variable, the core of this research is determining if the

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