Once you have defined the problem, and searched for a solution you can create a plan to solve that problem. Even if your search didn’t find a solution to your problem you may have found some additional things to check to further define your problem.

The plan should list all the possible causes of the problem that you can think of, and how to test for each possible cause.

Your troubleshooting plan will act as a checklist so that you know what you have tried and what is left to check. This is important to have if more than one person will be doing the troubleshooting. Without a written plan, people will become easily confused and steps will be skipped. Also if you have to hand over the problem to someone else, providing them with a detailed list of what data has been gathered and what solutions have been already tried demonstrates a good level of professionalism.

Be ready to add to your plan as needed. After you are part way through, you may discover that you forgot some tests or a test you performed discovered new information. This is normal.

Also if you contact support, they will require information about your problem as well as what you have already tried to fix the problem. This should all be part of your plan.