Your Guide to Effective Incident Management Process

Incident management seeks to restore services and disruptions in your IT infrastructure as soon as possible. The management process starts with the identification and reporting of the disruption or error and ends when the issue is resolved by an IT service desk professional.

What is Incident Management Process?

The incident management process in ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) includes actions and procedures as a response to resolve incidents; the process spans over the entire series of actions from the person responsible for the responses to the tools used by the IT team to handle the issue at hand.
That said, a well-designed management process ensures that all incidents are addressed and handled quickly while also maintaining a high standard of quality. From improving current operations to preventing future incidents, an effective incident management design can prove to be extremely beneficial for your business.

The 5 Stages Of Incident Management 

A proper incident management process streamlines the entire series of events involved in resolving disruptions to make it more organised and efficient. We have comprised the different stages of the incident management process for you to delve into –

1. Identification

The initial step of the incident process is to identify the incident or disruption. This starts with an employee or user identifying and reporting an interruption they come across. From an email or call to an in-person notification, the alert can be made in many ways.
After this, the IT service desk needs to identify the alert and classify it as an incident or a service request. Based on the information received from the alert, the service desk needs to document the incident along with the proper classification.
Once the incident is identified by the IT service desk, the next step of the process begins.

2. Logging

Documenting the incident or disruption is crucial as it identifies the potential problems or consequences of the incident. Through thorough reporting and documenting, your IT department can identify whether the incident is a trend that can evolve into a more complex problem or if it is an isolated error.
The logging and reporting of the incident are known as  “tickets”; every ticket must include all the minute details of the incident. From username and contact information to the date and time of occurrence, logging the incident creates comprehensive data that can help the IT department find trends or patterns that may have a negative impact.
After logging the information, the next step is to categorise the incident to identify a course of action to handle it tactfully.

3. Categorisation

Through categorisation, the service desk can streamline the management process to decide which incident has a higher priority for accurate incident tracking and management.
By assigning the right category or subcategory, the IT professional can easily monitor the occurrence to identify patterns with the other incidents and prevent redundancy to quicken the entire logging and management process.
However, since all businesses are unique, categorisation may differ from company-to-company. By having a brainstorming session to break down the process and analyse it, creating categories can be done easily according to your company. 
After assigning the right category, prioritising can help you select the incident which requires immediate assistance as opposed to those which do not pose a risk.

4. Prioritisation

Based on the categorisation, the service desk can identify which incident needs to be dealt with urgently and can pose a threat to the business or its operations. Through this, the urgency behind the management of each incident can be understood better to determine which disruption needs to be dealt with first.
There are three basic statuses for every incident –

• High Priority – These types of incidents typically cause a loss in financial aspects; high priority incidents affect a significant number of users and customers to affect the business on a large scale.
• Medium Priority – These incidents impact a smaller number of users and disrupt work on a moderate scale; however, due to a low threat level they have a slight impact on the overall business and operations.
• Low Priority – These incidents do not disrupt workflow in any way; customers or users are not affected by the disruption at all.

Since the IT professional or service desk may possibly have other IT-related aspects to deal with, prioritisation helps them decide which error or disruption needs to be dealt with first.

5. Response

After following all the initial procedures, the last step is to resolve the incident. The service desk now has enough information to proceed with their plan of action to manage the disruption or incident.
From diagnosis, advanced support and investigation to resolution, recovery and closure, the service desk can tackle the incident to resolve the issue thereby preventing it from having any further repercussions on your business and its operation.
Once the incident is resolved and closed, the incident management process is completed.

Tips To Improve the Incident Process

While the service desk can effectively handle the incident, there are other methods you could adopt to improve your process and make it more streamlined.
Training and supporting your employees to provide them with a better understanding of the process can equip them with the right knowledge and method of addressing anomalies that might occur in your IT environment.
Additionally, setting parameters for alerts can help you keep the process more organised and efficient to prevent time loss or increase response time. Moreover, by setting guidelines for the communication process, you can ensure that the incident is dealt with correctly and quickly. Clear communication can prevent any misunderstandings that can potentially have a negative impact on your organisation.
Furthermore, by the information gathered through incident logging, your IT support desk can work on improving the systems to prevent any future incidents and disruptions.

To Conclude

IT incidents have the potential to disrupt a business; based on the type of disruption, it can either hinder your operations or prove to be insignificant. However, by keeping yourself armed with a streamlined incident process, your IT expert can effectively manage the incidents to prevent any repercussions to your company, meaning having a good IT service desk or professional IT service solutions partner is key for an effective incident management process.

Contact Redpalm For Effective Incident Management

With the increasing threats and incidents that a business faces, it’s important for you to not only set up but also maintain a great IT service desk.
That said, by handing your IT issues to Redpalm, you can rest assured knowing that if there’s a system failure, our experienced IT professionals will resolve it as quickly as possible while minimising the overall downtime.
To offer the best in class IT support to your clients and customers, contact us today!