Patterns you will meet repeatedly.
CANNOT SIGN IN
Password, account locked, expired, caps lock, wrong username form, or a directory problem.
Establish whether others are affected.
NO NETWORK ACCESS
Work upward: link, address, gateway, external address, name resolution.
MAIL NOT SENDING OR RECEIVING
Establish whether webmail works, which separates the client from the server.
A FILE OR FOLDER CANNOT BE OPENED
Permissions, a lock by another user, corruption, or a missing application.
SOMETHING IS SLOW
Establish whether it is the machine, the network, or the service, before anything else.
A DOCUMENT WILL NOT PRINT
One user or all, one application or all.
A DEVICE WILL NOT START
Where the boot process stops.
SOFTWARE ERROR AFTER AN UPDATE
Establish what updated and when, against when it began.
SOMETHING WORKS FOR ONE PERSON AND NOT ANOTHER
Compare their configuration, permissions and version.
WHAT EVERY ONE OF THESE HAS IN COMMON
The scope questions resolve most of them before any technical work begins.
