Let us start by addressing what a major incident is in the context of IT services. We define a major incident as an event that creates a significant, negative impact or urgency for a business or organisation. They demand a response, strategy and direction beyond the capabilities of a standard incident management processes. Example 1: The value of Major Incident Management for large organisations Take a major retailer as an example… Many large, well-known major retailers rely on self-service point of sale devices and point of sale terminals to take payment for goods. In busy periods they may take around £4,000 of transactions per second. That equates to £240,000 per minute and £14,400,000 per hour. That is a substantial loss of earnings for every...
Major Incidents will require the focus and efforts of many individuals within your IT Operation. Detailed here are the roles involved and an overview of their remit when a major incident occurs. Every Operation is different and this is to be used as a framework, not necessarily verbatim. The Service Desk The Service Desk is the main point of contact for affected end users during service outages or degradation. Contact with the Service Desk is in the form of requests and reporting of incidents. The Service Desk is usually the first team to be made aware of a potential or actual IT major incident. During major incidents it should provide updates to the end users by way of announcements...
Whilst the Global Best Practice IT Major Incident Management Publication provides detailed processes, activities, guidance, tools and more, there are some core principles on which the framework exists.
These principles are intentionally clear and simple. They should guide individuals and organisations behaviour during a major incident.
The core principles of Best Practice IT Major Incident Management
Restore normal service operation as quickly as possible via workaround or permanent fix
Do so in a customer centric way that inspires confidence in End Users
Through inspiring leadership and communication, maximise collaboration and maintain positive relationships, both internally and externally
Whilst constantly evolving and improving the Major Incident Management service
Snippet: We reviewed over 200 job ads for the top jobs, CEO, CIO, Managing Director, IT Director and Head of Service Delivery to identify the most sought-after skills and how it relates to the skills and knowledge acquired by Major Incident Managers and positions them for career success. The article: It has long fascinated me that those that succeed in IT Major Incident Management often go on to succeed long-term in their careers. If I had to provide a solid guess at why that is, it would probably be something along the lines of: At it’s core, Major Incident Management is about Leadership, further to that, it is mostly about the leadership of people and resources who are not in...
In the context of IT Services Major Incident Management is an all-encompassing term. It describes the: Process – The series of steps and actions taken in order to achieve service resolution and restoration of ‘business as usual’ services. Function – Your organisation’s Major Incident Management function is formed by the roles that perform the processes. These can be individuals, a department or multiple departments. Service – The combination of roles and processes delivered to an end-to-end Major Incident Management service. So, IT Major Incident Management is the process, people, and resources an organisation utilises to manage a major incident. To learn what a major incident is click here. It is worth noting that Major Incident Management is different to Crisis Management. Let us...
