IT Incident Management System Metrics

 

What is an effective incident management system and what metrics are important to track? It is often referred to as taking action to restore regular service operations quickly while minimizing the negative impact on business operations. Managing incidents effectively is an essential piece for providing quality customer support and maintaining business continuity. The lessons learned can also help teams improve their current processes to prevent future incidents.

Benefits of an effective incident management system:

1. Increased productivity and efficiency
2. Higher level of service quality
3. Visibility and transparency
4. Valuable IT service management documentation
5. Enhance end-user satisfaction
6. Knowledge base documentation for reference

The self-service portal is the single point of contact for the users to report any incidents. When well-designed, the portal provides the user guidance ensuring the reported incident has all the pertinent information required to assist the L1 help desk. Well-documented service requests can be resolved in an efficient manner and routed to the appropriate team or individual quickly for resolution. This will also reduce the back-and-forth email with the customer for request clarity.

Incident Management Metrics 

There are 3 major factors through which an incident order is decided upon: Impact, urgency, and priority.

Impact – How a business is affected by an incident?

Urgent – How urgent the incident is and how much time it will take to be resolved? 

Priority – What is the priority of the incident ? (Low, Medium or High)

5 steps of incident management:

1. Incident Reporting communication begins at the time an incident is identified to acknowledge to the user or business that disruption is taking place and investigation is in progress.
2. Incident Escalation occurs when an incident triggers an alert and the proper procedures are performed by the individual who is assigned to manage the incident.
3. Investigation and Diagnosis IT team performs analysis, then staff can investigate the type, cause, and possible solutions for an incident.
4. Resolution and Recovery  involve eliminating the root causes of issues and restoring systems to full functioning operation. Resolving an incident also includes documenting the findings and steps taken to restore service.
5. Incident Closure communicating and confirming from users that the service experience is normalized ensuring customer satisfaction is met.