The Myth of a Pro-active PMR

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Every now and then in support, a PMR is opened by a customer as a "for your information" (FYI) to IBM. This used to be called a "pro-active" PMR. There seems to be a misconception that opening a PMR "just in case" your company needs help - say over the weekend - that this expedites matters. This is a myth: opening a PMR for a problem that hasn't yet happened does not serve any purpose.
If your company is preparing to implement a change that results in an issue - that is the time to open a PMR; to gather the logs; have a voice conference line and a web conference up and ready for IBM to hit the ground running. If it's a system down situation be sure to open the PMR as a Severity 1 and note the "system down" - that's an additional "heads up" to support regarding the urgency of the situation. If this is the weekend, the Severity 1 triggers a text alert to the on-call appropriate team. Your PMR will be handled with the same urgency it would receive on a regular business day. Save you and IBM time and open the PMR when an issue actually requires assistance.

There's also another option - become an Accelerate Value Program  (AVP) member. With AVP your Accelerated Value Leader (AVL) can trigger a world-wide alert with detailed information about the endeavor your company is undertaking. That alert is accessible from within any PMR you subsequently open. 

In the same vane, there is no purpose served in opening a PMR or keeping a PMR open when no work is being performed. For example, I have had Severity 1 PMRs opened whereby "root cause analysis" is desired. However, either the necessary data was not gathered at the time of the issue (for example - thread dumps during a performance issue) or IBM is waiting for data to be produced to be analyzed. The time to open a PMR is when you have the data gathered and are able to post it to the PMR. If an analyst requests closure of a PMR where little or no work has been done or can be done, please allow them to close this.

In conclusion, save yourself and IBM time and open the PMR when the problem occurs and gather the data necessary for IBM to shorten the time to resolution.