What is Incident Management

Incident Management is a crucial process in IT Service Management (ITSM) that aims to restore regular service operation as quickly as possible after an incident occurs, minimising the impact on business operations. An "incident" refers to an unplanned disruption or degradation of service quality, such as server crashes, software bugs, security breaches, or performance bottlenecks. By effectively managing these incidents, organisations can ensure high levels of availability, maintain service quality, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction.

One effective approach to incident management is the TRACeR method, a structured workflow designed to handle incidents systematically from detection through evaluation. The TRACeR acronym is Triage, Review, Action, Check, and Resolve, each step critical to comprehensive incident management.

Key Objectives of Incident Management

The primary goals of incident management are:

1. Restore Normal Operations Quickly: The main objective is to bring IT services back to a functional state with minimal disruption to business operations. Speed and efficiency are crucial in restoring normal operations.

2. Minimise Business Impact: By resolving incidents quickly, incident management helps to minimise the financial, reputational, and productivity impacts that disruptions can cause.

3. Improve Service Quality: Learning from past incidents is essential to incident management and contributes to continuous improvement. This reduces the risk of recurrence and enhances overall service stability.

4. Customer Satisfaction: Timely and effective incident resolution is essential for maintaining customer trust and satisfaction, especially in service-oriented environments where downtime can directly affect the user experience.

The Incident Management Lifecycle with TRACeR

The incident management lifecycle involves several key steps that the TRACE method makes easy to remember while still supporting all the steps:

1. Incident Identification and Logging:

   • Detection through monitoring systems, user complaints, or IT team observations.

   • Triage (T) ensures that the incident is correctly logged with the correct details and prioritised effectively.

2. Categorisation and Prioritisation:

   • Incidents are classified and assigned based on their nature—such as hardware, software, or security issues.

   • The Triage (T) phase ensures categorisation and prioritisation are completed swiftly to avoid delays.

3. Initial Diagnosis and Review:

   • Review (R) gathers detailed information to understand the nature and scope of the incident. This is critical for root cause analysis.

   • Escalation decisions are made here to determine whether the incident needs to move to higher-level support.

4. Escalation and Investigation:

   • If the incident is beyond the capabilities of Level 1 support, it is escalated to Level 2 or even external vendors.

   • The Action (A) phase manages escalation if the current team cannot resolve the issue. This is especially true for incidents requiring additional expertise or resources.

5. Resolution and Check:

   • During Action (A), the necessary fixes are implemented to restore services. The Check (C) phase follows, verifying the solution is effective.

   • Verification and testing during the Check phase ensure the resolution meets all requirements without introducing new issues.

6. Closure and Resolution:

   • After verifying the incident is resolved, it is closed, and a post-incident evaluation is conducted.

   • The Resolve (R) phase ensures that any learnings are documented, processes are refined, and proactive measures are taken to prevent similar incidents.