{"id":13297,"date":"2021-06-10T18:34:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T13:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.invensislearning.com\/blog\/?p=13297"},"modified":"2026-05-19T10:41:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:11:47","slug":"itil-incident-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.invensislearning.com\/blog\/itil-incident-management\/","title":{"rendered":"ITIL Incident Management Process: Steps and Flow Diagram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business always targets uninterrupted services to accomplish greater proficiency and productivity. Incident management is the initial step embraced by most enterprises for achieving a speedy recovery. <\/span>ITIL<\/a> defines the incident as \u201cAn unplanned interruption to a service, or the failure of a component of a service that hasn\u2019t yet impacted service.\u201d <\/span>In this article, we will discuss ITIL incident management and its associated process, roles, and responsibilities to understand efficient IT service management<\/a> practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is ITIL Incident Management?<\/b><\/h2>\n

When an incident occurs, the major goal of the management is to get the service restored to a normal level of operation within agreed service level agreements. It is the main component of ITIL service support<\/a>. Though certain operations fail to resolve or configure to normal operations, they are considered an incident. Even if a similar incident occurs multiple times, then a record of the problem should be made.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since several incidents can occur, it is impractical to solve all of them simultaneously. So, it should be ranked on a priority basis from high, medium, and low priority assigned on the basis of the impact caused by its urgency or interruption. A problem that ranks high on an impact and urgency basis is given a high priority as it can affect the functioning of an enterprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

ITIL Incident Management Function<\/b><\/h2>\n

Various functions are involved in incident management and the most important one is the service desk. The service desk is the single point of contact for the users to report any incidents. Without the availability of a service desk, users will have to contact support staff without prioritization. It means the staff might handle low-priority incidents overlooking high-priority incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, having a structured service desk enables support staff to handle all issues promptly, gather IT data, and support problem management in an efficient way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ITIL<\/a><\/p>\n

ITIL Incident Management Process<\/b><\/h2>\n

Incident management plays a vital role in the day-to-day processes of an organization to encourage efficient workflow and deliver the best results for providers and customers. To ensure your IT support team is competent, implement a structured process flow from reporting the incident to resolving the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

The main process steps involved in incident management:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"incident<\/strong><\/p>\n

Incident Identification<\/b><\/h3>\n

The incident comes from the users in whatever form the enterprise allows. The service desk decides whether the issue is strictly an incident or just a request. In the case of requests, they are categorized and handled more diversely than incidents, and they fall under request fulfillment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Logging<\/b><\/h3>\n

After identifying the issue, the service desk logs the incident as a ticket. The ticket should contain information such as the user\u2019s name, contact details, incident description, and other related details. Ideally, the incident logging process would comprise prioritization, categorization, and other steps followed by the service desk.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Categorization<\/b><\/h3>\n

Once you have logged the ticket, the issue needs to be classified to determine how actually the issue has to be handled. The process helps the team to sort out and model the incidents more easily based on their categories. It allows some of the issues to be automatically prioritized. The process makes it easier for the service desk team to track and identify the incidents and prevent them accordingly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Prioritization<\/b><\/h3>\n

Incident prioritization is an essential part of the incident management process as it helps you to determine how best to prioritize any issue. An incident priority is determined by its influence on the users and its urgency on the business. An incident having high impact and high urgency should be worked on before something with low impact and low urgency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Response<\/b><\/h3>\n

Rather than closing out an incident, the service desk personnel need to ensure with the end-user whether the incident was handled acceptably or not. If so, the issue can be closed, else the service desk personnel should check whether it is a recurring problem or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Management Process Life Cycle Flow Diagram<\/b><\/h2>\n

The incident management life cycle comprises a set of instructions that allows and encourages IT professionals, to work together to achieve effective IT service delivery. Irrespective of the size or type of industry, the incident management life cycle is flexible and can be easily structured in a way it can cater to the industry requirements.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Incident Management Roles and Responsibilities<\/b><\/h2>\n

Four separate roles are allocated during the incident management handling process. Here, we describe some major incident management roles and responsibilities that are associated with each of the job titles:<\/span><\/p>\n

1st Level Technical Support<\/b><\/h3>\n

They are the major contact persons for any incident reports within an organization. Usually, they staff the IT service desk by taking incident reports from clients in registering, categorizing, and taking an immediate effort to restore the service interruption at the earliest.<\/span>
\n<\/span>When the 1st-level technical support can\u2019t resolve the interruption within the given time frame, the issue is escalated to the 2nd-level support. Though 1st-level support technicians might be accountable for restoring the IT service in case of a major incident, they are not accountable for managing with the incident team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incident Manager<\/b><\/h3>\n

An incident manager is held responsible for the complete incident management process within an enterprise, which comprises all major incidents reported and to be resolved. Once the issue is escalated either by 1st or 2nd level staff, then the incident management should identify what resources and proficiency are needed to resolve the incident and form a major incident team that can solve the issues as soon as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

IT Operator<\/b><\/h3>\n

IT operators are responsible for performing day-to-day operations within organizations like maintaining servers, backing up data, and ensuring that scheduled tasks are performed. They are used as extra labor to address major service interruptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Major Incident Team<\/b><\/h3>\n

The role of the major incident team in addressing major IT interruptions is to restore the services quickly using accessible resources. The size of the team depends on the nature of the service interruption and the level of expertise required to restore the service.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ITIL<\/a><\/p>\n

The Scope of ITIL Incident Management<\/b><\/h2>\n

Incident management includes events that might cause disruption of services in an organization. This disruption can be anything from power failures, software bugs, and hardware damage to severe crashes. All the events need not have to be incidents. Many events are not at all related to disruption but are indicators of normal operations.<\/span><\/p>\n

All these aspects come under the scope of incident management and can be systematically resolved by assigning priorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Procedure of ITIL Incident Management<\/b><\/h2>\n

\"ITIL<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following procedure is followed in incident management:<\/span><\/p>\n