Prioritising Incidents by Impact and Urgency

Incidents should be prioritised by combining business impact and urgency through agreed rules, not by the caller's status, seniority or pressure alone. Priority must also be reassessed in a controlled way as facts change.

• Define impact levels and urgency criteria separately, then combine them in a clear model. Confusing severity with urgency is one of the pitfalls the article highlights.
• Urgency reflects time sensitivity. In the article's example, a payroll interruption near cut-off receives higher urgency than the same technical failure on a quiet day. Use representative cases, including material exceptions.
• Allow controlled reassessment. Keeping the original priority after impact changes is a pitfall, and so is letting every caller declare high priority. Record the rationale whenever a priority changes.
• Measure priority accuracy, priority changes with rationale, and response performance by impact as a set. Pilot the model on one representative case and review priority accuracy before extending it to the wider service population.
• Keep the purpose in view: incident management protects consumers by restoring service quickly, maintaining ownership and communicating clearly, leaving causal learning to problem management once stability returns.