11.1 Production support process flow People often compare the production support role in an IT shop to the triage principles that are employed in the emergency room of a hospital. Even though production support is not a matter of life and death, the analogy fits when considering the prioritization of the work to be done. The issues need to be brought to the attention of those people who are best equipped to deal with them. Tasks must be assessed and prioritized based on their urgency. Jobs on the critical path of the batch stream need to be fixed before jobs that are not. Also, it is important to capture information at the time of the ABEND. This information will be valuable in both handling the immediate issue and also later when investigating the root cause of the problem. After the immediate concerns are dealt with effectively, you can identify the root cause and develop, test, and implement its solution (Figure 11-1).