Incident categorization

Part of the initial logging must be to allocate suitable incident categorization coding so that the exact type of the call is recorded. This will be important later when looking at incident types/frequencies to establish trends for use in Problem Management, Supplier Management and other ITSM activities.

Please note that the check for Service Requests in this process does not imply that Service Requests are incidents. This is simply recognition of the fact that Service Requests are sometimes incorrectly logged as incidents (e.g. a user incorrectly enters the request as an incident from the web interface). This check will detect any such requests and ensure that they are passed to the Request Fulfilment process.

Multi-level categorization is available in most tools – usually to three or four levels of granularity. For example, an incident may be categorized as shown in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3 Multi-level incident categorization

All organizations are unique and it is therefore difficult to give generic guidance on the categories an organization should use, particularly at the lower levels. However, there is a technique that can be used to assist an organization to achieve a correct and complete set of categories – if they are starting from scratch! The steps involve:

1. Hold a brainstorming session among the relevant support groups, involving the SD Supervisor and Incident and Problem Managers.
2. Use this session to decide the ‘best guess’ top-level categories – and include an ‘other’ category. Set up the relevant logging tools to use these categories for a trial period.
3. Use the categories for a short trial period (long enough for several hundred incidents to fall into each category, but not too long that an analysis will take too long to perform).
4. Perform an analysis of the incidents logged during the trial period. The number of incidents logged in each higher-level category will confirm whether the categories are worth having – and a more detailed analysis of the ‘other’ category should allow identification of any additional higher-level categories that will be needed.
5. A breakdown analysis of the incidents within each higher-level category should be used to decide the lower-level categories that will be required.
6. Review and repeat these activities after a further period – of, say, one to three months – and again regularly to ensure that they remain relevant. Be aware that any significant changes to categorization may cause some difficulties for incident trending or management reporting – so they should be stabilized unless changes are genuinely required.

If an existing categorization scheme is in use, but it is not thought to be working satisfactorily, the basic idea of the technique suggested above can be used to review and amend the existing scheme.

NOTE: Sometimes the details available at the time an incident is logged may be incomplete, misleading or incorrect. It is therefore important that the categorization of the incident is checked, and updated if necessary, at call closure time (in a separate closure categorization field, so as not to corrupt the original categorization) – please see paragraph 4.2.5.9.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1334