IT Incident Management Concepts

Objective of Incident Management

• Restore unscheduled service interruption as quickly as possible

Definition of Terms:

• An incident is a unscheduled interruption or degradation of service

Escalation

The process for getting more resources is called escalation. There are two types of escalation:

• Functional escalation passes the incident to another party within the same unit.
• Hierarchical escalation passes the incident to someone higher in the hierarchy so more resources can be requested.

Incident Management Activities

• The first step in incident management is identifying the incident. Once the incident is identified, it is logged.
• The incident is categorized and prioritized.
• Initial diagnosis is performed. At this point, the person receiving the incident attempts to resolve the incident.
• If the incident is resolved, it is closed. If the incident is not resolved, the incident is escalated to another unit that will resolve it.
• Investigation will proceed and initial diagnosis is done. The purpose at this point is to fix the incident as quickly as possible. This is done through workarounds or quick fixes.
• Once a resolution is determined, the resolution is implemented. Recovery can result if the incident is caused by a newly implemented change.
• The incident is then classified and initial support is given.
• When the incident is confirmed as fixed, the incident is closed.