Incident management

An organization uses this practice to survive from the negative aspects of incidents by reducing the time of returning to the normal state.

Incident: An unplanned disruption on a service or reduction of the quality of service. 

The effect of this practice on customers’ and user’s satisfaction is very high. Any incident should be recorded and managed in order to be resolved during an expected time. 

The resolving times are agreed, recorded, and analyzed with customers based on realistic expectations. The incidents are prioritized so the more important they are, the faster they will be resolved. 

Organizations should design this practice properly to achieve better management and resource assignments for different types of incidents. Incidents with fewer effects should consume fewer resources and incidents with greater effects need more resources and more complex management. Usually, different processes for major incidents and information security incidents are considered. 

There should be a tool for incident recording and incident records should be connected via links to CI’s, changes, problems, errors, and knowledge to lead into quick and efficient recovery. Modern IT service management tools can automatically match new incidents with similar previously occurred incidents to propose solutions for current incidents. It is also very important that the people who are working on an incident have proper and updated information and effective communications. 

According to the complexity and importance of and incident, it will be resolved by different people. Some incidents are managed and resolved by users themselves, some by helpdesks, some by a special support team, some by a supplier or partner, some by a team as a combination of those mentioned. 

Figure 5.20