Define: Major Problem

What Major Problem Means in a Contract

A Major Problem is a contractual severity classification used to describe a fault, error, or incident that significantly impairs the use of a service or software but does not render it entirely unusable. It sits between a minor issue, which causes limited inconvenience, and a critical or total failure, which stops the service outright. The term matters because it triggers specific obligations, such as response time commitments, escalation procedures, or service credits, that would not apply to lesser issues.

Parties use this classification to allocate risk and set expectations about how quickly and thoroughly a supplier must act when something goes wrong. Because the consequences of misclassification can be significant, ranging from delayed fixes to disputed service credits, contracts typically define Major Problem with enough specificity to avoid ambiguity during a live incident.

This concept is especially common in technology and outsourcing arrangements, where uptime and functionality are core to the value being delivered. A well drafted definition gives both the customer and the provider a shared reference point for judging severity without relying on subjective impressions in the heat of an incident.

How Major Problem Is Defined or Measured

Most agreements measure a Major Problem by reference to impact rather than technical cause. Common indicators include a key function becoming unavailable, performance degrading beyond an agreed threshold, or a significant subset of users being unable to complete essential tasks. The defining feature is that some functionality remains, distinguishing it from a total outage.

Contracts often use a tiered severity table to make this measurable, for example:

• Critical: total loss of service with no workaround available
• Major Problem: substantial impairment of core functions, with a workaround or partial service remaining
• Minor: limited impact on non-essential features or a small number of users

Each tier is usually paired with response and resolution targets. A Service Level Agreement will frequently specify that a Major Problem must be acknowledged within a set number of hours and resolved or mitigated within a longer window, with escalation to senior technical staff if targets are missed.

Where Major Problem Appears in Agreements

The term is most commonly found in technology-related contracts, including a