What are the steps to incident management?

Incident Management restores normal service operation while minimizing impact to business operations and maintaining quality.

An incident, by definition, is an occurrence that can disrupt or cause a loss of operations, services, or functions. Incident management describes the necessary actions taken by an organization to analyze, identify, and correct problems while taking actions that can prevent future incidents.

What are the steps to incident management?

Incident logging

An incident is identified and recorded in user reports and using solution analyses—once identified, the incident is logged and categorized. This is important for how future incidents can be handled and for prioritization of incidents.

Notification & escalation

The timing of this step may vary from incident to incident depending on the categorization of the incident. Smaller incidents may also be logged and acknowledged without triggering an official alert. Escalation occurs when an incident triggers an alert, and the proper procedures are performed by the individual who is assigned to manage the alert.

Incident classification

Incidents need to be classified into the proper category and subcategory in order to be easily identified and addressed. Typically, classification happens automatically when the right fields are set up for classification, prioritization is assigned based on the classification, and reports are quickly generated.

Incident prioritization

The proper priority can have a direct impact on the SLA of an incident response, ensuring that business-critical issues are addressed on time and neither customers nor employees experience any lapse in service.

Investigation and diagnosis

The IT team performs an analysis and provides a solution to the employee once an incident is raised. If a resolution is not immediately available, the incident is escalated to the proper teams for further investigation and diagnosis of the incident.

Incident resolution and closure

An IT team is meant to resolve incidents using the proper prioritization methods as quickly as possible. Communication can help with the resolution and closure of tickets, with the possibility of automation to help resolving tickets. Once an incident is resolved, there is further logging and understanding of how to prevent the incident from occurring again or decrease the time to resolution.

Source: servicenow.com