Configuration management persistent storage contains entries representing configuration items and relationships between pairs of the configuration items. Event management persistent storage contains entries representing alert records. Change request persistent storage contains change records respectively referring to changes made to the configuration items. One or more processors may be configured to: extract, from a particular alert, a particular configuration item referred to therein that is associated with a particular problem; determine, by way of the relationships, a set of configuration items within a topological distance of the particular configuration item; identify, by way of the change records, one or more change requests that refer to any of the set of configuration items; and calculate root cause scores for the one or more change requests, wherein the root cause scores respectively represent estimations of impacts that the changes of the one or more change requests had on causing the particular alert.