Are you Reacting or Responding to IT Incidents?

ARE YOU REACTING OR RESPONDING IT INCIDENTS?

Introduction

An efficient IT is critical for smooth digital journey for any organization. It is not possible without proper streamlined IT support. Management of IT issues form the core of IT support.

Have you seen IT technicians running from one corner of the building to another, putting off one fire and the next? It is because the organization lacks proper IT request management process.

Implementation of proper incident management systems and processes will help these IT technicians live in peace while performing their duties efficiently and also it increases the productivity of business.

What is Incident and Service Request?

Understanding the problem is the first step of any problem-solving. To plan an effective IT service management, it is important to understand and categorize the different types of IT requests.

All kinds of tickets in IT can be broadly classified into “Incident” and “Service request”.

Incident is ‘an unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service.’ When everything works exactly the way it’s meant to, the service in question operates without a hitch. But when something doesn’t, it causes ‘unplanned interruptions’ to the service and creates an incident.

Whereas a service request is raised when you want to procure something that you don’t have in the first place. Be it access to the printer or upgrading to a higher version of a software or getting a new laptop.

It is important to understand it then only you can define what kind of work you are doing, what is the importance and priority of it and what is the process to do it. If there is no categorization and process of incident and service request then IT Department life is not at peace and end users does not confidence on IT Services.

To put it simply, the differences between incident and service request are:

Incident vs Service Requests

	Incident	Service Request
Meaning	An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service	Request for add, remove or change, etc.
Priority	High priority as service is down	Medium or low priority
Approval and Process	Incident Management process, priority is given to bring service back	Service request may require approval and prerequisites to full fill the results as it is for add or change.
Risks	Downtime causes business loss	There is no downtime but delay in completion of SRs can trigger incidents or increases users dissatisfaction on IT Services

Six of the most compelling reasons why you would want incident and service request management processes in place, are:

1. Reduced Delays – Incident and Service request management process has defined SLA and gets the right priority according to nature of request so there are reduced delays in support.

2. Ownership of every Incident – With a defined process on Incidents and server requests management, ownership of tickets is defined and which provides accountability and better results.

3. Workload Prioritization – Business users need timely and efficient support for their IT needs and IT teams have limited resources, so they need to categorize and prioritize the requests as per their requirements. Incidents must get higher priority than service requests.

4. Better Service Quality – A good process and increased IT Team efficiency brings better quality in IT services.

5. Improved User Satisfaction – when business users are getting quick and quality support it improves their end results and leads to customer success.

6. Reports – Incident and Service Reports provide you the insights on IT requests , which type of requests are getting generated more and what is the reason for that. Which helps in better planning and decision making.