Glossary for incident management

Incident

An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Failure of a configuration item, even if it has not yet affected a service, is also an incident (e.g. failure of one disk from a mirror set).

Incident identification

The process of discovering an incident.

Incident logging

Creating and maintaining a record of an incident in the form of a ticket.

Incident categorization

Recording an incident with due diligence so that it's placed under the appropriate category.

Incident closure

Closing an open incident ticket once the incident has been resolved.

Incident escalation rules

A set of rules defining the hierarchy for escalating incidents, including triggers that lead to escalations. Triggers are usually based on incident severity and resolution time.

Incident management

Managing the life cycle of all incidents to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimize business impact.

Incident management report

A series of reports produced by the incident manager for various target groups (e.g. teams responsible for IT management, service level management, other service management processes, or incident management itself).

Incident manager

The person responsible for the effective implementation of the incident management process and carrying out reporting. Also represents the first stage of escalation if an incident is not able to be resolved within the agreed service level.

Incident model

Contains the predefined steps that should be taken to deal with a particular type of incident.

Incident monitoring

Tracking the processing status of outstanding incidents so that counter measures may be introduced as soon as possible if service levels are likely to be breached.

Incident prioritization

Assigning priorities to incidents and defining what constitutes a major Incident.

Incident record

A collection of data with all details of an incident, documenting the history of the incident from registration to closure.

Incident report

A report that includes information about incidents, how they were handled, and other data that can help measure the performance of the incident management process.

Incident resolution

The workaround or correction that fixes the incident and restores service to its best quality.

Incident status

How far along an incident is in the incident management process. Common statuses include:

• New : An incident that has been logged but not yet worked on.
• Assigned : An incident that has been received in the IT help desk and assigned to a technician.
• In progress : An incident that has been assigned to a technician and is in the process of receiving a resolution.
• On hold or pending : An incident that has been temporarily put on hold.
• Resolved : An incident that was worked on by a technician and has received a resolution.
• Closed : An incident that was closed once the resolution was acknowledged by the end user.