Users at a remote site have reported that a regularly used server is inaccessible. The systems administrator knows users at another site also use the same server, so the administrator contacts them…

Establishing a plan to resolve the issue occurs later in the troubleshooting process, after a theory has been formed and tested, not during initial information gathering about who is affected.

Establishing a theory of probable cause involves forming a specific hypothesis about the root cause of a problem, not gathering data about which users or sites are impacted.

Establishing scope means identifying which users, locations, or systems are impacted by an issue. Contacting a second user group to confirm whether they see the same problem helps the administrator determine if the outage is isolated to one remote site, a shared network path, or the server itself - all of which define the breadth of the incident and guide subsequent troubleshooting steps.

Testing a theory of probable cause involves taking specific steps to validate or invalidate a hypothesis, which has not yet been formed at this stage of the process.