Incident Management Secrets

Incident management and other aspects of the service desk

Incident management is a set of policies, processes, workflows, and documentation that assists IT departments in managing incidents throughout their lifecycle. The incident management process includes identifying the incident, logging it along with all relevant information, diagnosing the problem, and restoring service in a timely manner. Incident management can be compared to firefighting, where the main goal is to minimize damage to the business.

On the other hand, IT problem management is the process of identifying the root cause of one or more incidents and then taking action to correct the problem. Problem management is designed to minimize the impact of a problem on the business by taking a more organized approach in the form of root cause analysis, which is used to identify the root cause. The issue is then fixed to prevent similar incidents in the future. Finally, identifying key issues aids in incident management and promotes business continuity.

Incident and change management

The ITIL change management process is the process of systematically changing an organization’s IT infrastructure to conform to standards. This is a well-planned process, consisting of several stages and including various states that IT changes can be in.

Typically, IT changes are initiated at the end of IT problem management processes to address identified IT issues in order to replace a failed asset that results in recurring incidents, or as part of providing a solution to a major incident. The goal of IT incident management is to minimize disruption to your IT infrastructure and quickly restore service. In some cases, the implementation of changes can lead to incidents, the vast majority of which are minor, caused by temporary service outages or service unavailability. The impact of such incidents can be minimized by proactively notifying users of changes and identifying suspected incidents or service unavailability. If a change causes a major incident, change management teams can immediately roll back the change to restore normal operation.

Incident and Asset Management

By integrating IT asset management and IT incident management processes, it is much easier for Tier 2 and Tier 3 technicians to diagnose and resolve incidents. For example, when a user reports a problem with a limited internet connection, the problem could be either with the computer or with the router they are connected to. Having all the information about the user’s computer – including information about the router to which it is connected, and data about it – the technician can quickly determine the cause of the incident and provide an appropriate solution. From an asset management perspective, linking IT incidents to assets helps IT departments identify and eliminate failed assets that are causing recurring incidents in the organization.

Glossary of ITIL Incident Management Terms

Incident
Unplanned interruption or reduction in IT service quality. The failure of a configuration item, even if it has not yet affected the operation of a service, is also considered an incident (for example, a failure of one of the disks in the array).

Incident identification

Incident detection process.

Incident registration
Create and save an incident record as a ticket.

Incident classification
Properly logging the incident so that it is categorized accordingly.

Incident closure
Closing an open ticket about an incident after it has been resolved.

Incident escalation rules

A set of rules that define the hierarchy for incident escalation, including the triggers that trigger the escalation. Triggers are usually based on the severity of the incident and the timing of the resolution.

Incident Management
Manage the lifecycle of all incidents to restore normal service operation and minimize business impact.

Incident Management Report
A set of reports generated by an incident manager for various target groups (for example, groups involved in IT management, service level management, other service management processes, or incident management).

Incident Manager

The person responsible for the effective implementation of the incident management process and reporting. Also acts as the first step for escalation if an incident cannot be resolved at the agreed service level.

Incident Model
Contains predefined steps that an incident of a particular type must go through.