Among the various ITSM processes,  Incident Management is often one of the first that organizations implement. It is also one of the most common points of interaction between the internal IT department and business units. Effective implementation of the incident management process can quickly demonstrate the value of IT while delivering significant benefits to the business. Unlike a traditional ticketing system, a mature incident management process incorporates automation and knowledge-driven resolution. Unlike a traditional ticketing system, a mature incident management process incorporates automation and knowledge-driven resolution.

In the incident management process, how can organizations achieve rapid ticket assignment, swift resolution, and rapid restoration of services to normal levels? Drawing on practical experience, this section shares several implementation insights.

01 Effective Incident Prioritization

Effectively determining priorities is considered one of the most challenging tasks by most IT managers. Priorities are determined based on the impact of incidents on business operations. The calculation method for priority is: Priority = Impact × Urgency. Urgency refers to how quickly an incident must be resolved, while impact refers to the scope of the incident's influence.

For example, incidents affecting critical business systems that impact a large number of users should always be ranked first (i.e., Level 1). In contrast, common daily incidents that only impact individual users are typically categorized as Level 3 or Level 4.

Some questions to consider when determining the severity of an incident:

● The impact on enterprise productivity

● How many users are affected

● How many systems are affected

● The importance of the affected systems to the organization

Four severity levels are suitable for most organizations, and generally, no more than five levels are recommended. Too many levels can make it difficult for IT engineers to make decisions during assessment.

Example – Prioritization Strategy of an IT Organization：

02 Enhancing Timeline Control

1 Rapid Incident Logging

In incident management, rapid incident logging requires a simple yet comprehensive incident-record form. By leveraging tools, structured fields, and template-based approaches, incidents can be recorded quickly and efficiently. As a core component of IT Service Management, incident management directly impacts user satisfaction and business continuity. As a core component of IT Service Management, incident management directly impacts user satisfaction and business continuity.

2 Quick Assignment

The core capability to ensure and enhance operations efficiency lies in the rapid and effective assignment of incident tickets. This involves quickly identifying the incident category, defining its association with different support groups, and accurately determining which team should handle the incident to ensure timely and professional resolution. A modern ITSM platform provides intelligent incident routing and automation capabilities that streamline this process. A modern ITSM platform provides intelligent incident routing and automation capabilities that streamline this process.

How to develop an incident category and group mapping table for optimal results?

Incident categories should be defined using consistent, mutually recognized terminology within the IT team. Classification can be based on service types, technical capabilities, or resource categories. For organizations struggling with initial classification efforts, categorization by resource type or system can be considered as a starting point. However, for incidents reported directly by end users, technical language may make it difficult for them to accurately determine the appropriate category.

The mapped processing team can be a group or an individual. If multiple people within a group share the same responsibilities, assignment can be to the group. If each individual has clearly defined roles, assignment can be directly to a specific person.

3 Rapid Resolution

Rapid incident resolution is a critical step. To achieve this goal, two essential preparatory measures are required: tool integration and standardization.

• Tool integration refers to leveraging various technical tools in daily operations, such as scripts and remote tools, among others.

Example: Deleting Outdated Log Files

#!/bin/sh

# Log directory

log_dir="/logs"

# Number of days to retain log files

max_days=7

echo "Cleaning up outdated log files"

find "${log_dir}" -name "*.log" -type f -mtime +"${max_days}" -exec rm -rf {} \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\;

Invoking Scripts in the CanWay Process

• Standardization refers to using SOP to document fixed operational steps for handling common incidents.例：服务器故障排除SOP

Troubleshooting

When a server experiences a hardware failure, follow these troubleshooting steps:

Identify the cause of the fault. Check components such as the power supply, hard drive, memory, motherboard, and processor in sequence. If conditions permit, use the substitution method to test each hardware component.

Restore the firmware to its default settings. For example, remove third-party vendor parts and non-standard components; clear the CMOS to restore initial resource configurations.

4 Rapid Ticket Closure

The prerequisite for closing an incident ticket is confirmation from the user who submitted it that the issue has been resolved. Through follow-up methods typically available in modern tools, such as email or instant messaging (IM), set a default auto-closure period (e.g., three days) for regular incidents if no response is received. For high-priority incidents, adopt a manual one-on-one follow-up approach.

03 Appropriate Incident Escalation

Incident escalation includes technical escalation and management escalation, which complement each other. Technical escalation occurs when the engineer handling the incident lacks the required expertise and the incident must be escalated to personnel or teams with more advanced skills. Management escalation requires intervention by higher-level managers to secure sufficient resources.

The purpose of an escalation strategy is to ensure that incidents of different priorities are assigned appropriate resources for resolution. Therefore, it is necessary to define the time frames for incident escalation. When a specific time threshold is reached, if the incident remains unresolved, the corresponding escalation path will be triggered.

An example of an incident escalation strategy in an IT organization

Example of handling time limits for incidents at a specific priority level.

This table describes the response time limits and the level of effort for each role involved in handling incidents of a specific priority level.

The above are practical insights from incident-management implementation. Organizations should adapt them to their own service characteristics, organizational structures, and management maturity.