Incidents and Problems: Two Key Service Management Concepts

The two processes of incident and problem management are among the most important of all the ITIL processes. They are often the first to be implemented by an organization that has decided to adopt the ITIL framework. The differentiation between incident management and problem management is an important distinction, and an organization that has adopted both of these processes has made a major advance toward improving their services and their service management.

Both these processes are carried out by every IT service provider, whether they are called by these names or not. All service providers fix faults as quickly as possible when they occur (incident management) and try to ascertain why the fault occurred so that it can be prevented from happening again (problem management). Many organizations do not differentiate between the two processes, however, and problem management in particular may not be carried out in a consistent fashion. A failure to appreciate the difference between problems and incidents may result in delayed service restoration following an incident and in allowing incidents to recur, causing business disruption each time.

ITIL provides guidance for the best approach to these two key processes. Effective incident management will improve availability, ensuring that users are able to get back to work quickly following a failure. Problem management will improve the overall quality and availability of services (and as such works in conjunction with continual service improvement); it also makes best use of skilled IT staff, who are freed from resolving repeat incidents and are able to spend time preventing them instead.