INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

What is an Incident?
An ‘Incident’ is any event which is not part of the standard operation of the service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption or a reduction of the quality of the service.

Objective:
The objective of Incident Management is to restore normal operations as quickly as possible with the least possible impact on either the business or the user, at a cost-effective price.

Inputs & Outputs of IM:
Inputs, mostly come from users, but can have other sources as well like management Information or Detection Systems.
The outputs of the process are RFC’s (Requests for Changes), resolved and closed Incidents, management information and communication to the customer.

Process of Incident Management:
· Incident detection and recording
· Classification and initial support
· Investigation and diagnosis
· Resolution and recovery
· Incident closure
· Incident ownership, monitoring, tracking and communication
*** These elements provide a baseline for management review.

Procedure of Incident Management:
• Detect and record incidents
• Classify incidents
• Provide initial incident support
• Prioritize incidents based on impact and urgency
• Investigate and diagnose incidents
• Resolve incidents and recover service per agreed service levels
• Close incidents
• Maintain ownership, monitoring, tracking and communications about incidents
• Provide management information about Incident Management quality and operations

What are the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of IM?
• Maintaining IT Service Quality
• Maintaining Customer Satisfaction
• Resolving Incidents Within Established Service Times

What are the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for IM?
Maintaining IT Service Quality
• Number of Severity 1 incidents (total and by category)
• Number of Severity 2 incidents (total and by category)
• Number of other incidents (total and by category)
• Number of incidents incorrectly categorized
• Number of incidents incorrectly escalated
• Number of incidents bypassing Service Desk
• Number of incidents not closed/resolved with workarounds
• Number of incidents resolved before customers notice
• Number of incidents reopened
Maintaining Customer Satisfaction
• Number of User/Customer surveys sent
• Number of User/Customer surveys responded to
• Average User/Customer survey score (total and by question category)
• Average queue time waiting for Incident response
Resolving Incidents Within Established Service Times
• Number of incidents logged
• Number of incidents resolved by Service Desk
• Number of incidents escalated by Service Desk
• Average time to restore service from point of first call
• Average time to restore Severity 1 incidents
• Average time to restore Severity 2 incidents

Finally, Incident management stands for Restoring normal state of IT service operations as quickly as possible to minimize the adverse impact on business operations.