Incident Management Prioritization (ITIL Severity Level)

How to assign the right priority to a ticket

The Priority is the result of Impact + Urgency.

1. Incident Impact (Impact Categories)

This section introduces Incident Impact categories. The definitions must be exactly matched to the organisation, so the following table is an example:

Category	Description
High (H) Widespread	▪ A large number of employees are affected and / or can’t perform their duties. ▪ A large number of customers are affected and / or are in some way exposed to acute disadvantages. ▪ Damaging the reputation of the company on a large scale is likely.
Medium (M) Localized	▪ A moderate number of employees are affected and / or can’t perform their tasks as intended. ▪ A moderate number of customers are affected and / or experience limitations in comfort. ▪ Damaging the company's reputation on a moderate scale is likely.
Low (L) Individualized	▪ A minimal number of employees are affected and / or can perform their tasks, but only with additional effort. ▪ A minimal number of customers is affected and / or experiences limitations in comfort, but only to a limited extent. ▪ A damage to the reputation of the company is only to be expected to a minimal extent.

2. Incident Urgency (Urgency Categories)

This section provides Incident-Urgency categories. The definitions must be exactly matched to the organisation, so the following table is an example:

Category	Description
High (H)	▪ The damage caused by the incident increases rapidly. ▪ The tasks, which can’t be fulfilled by the employees, are very time-critical. ▪ Rapid action can prevent a Minor Incident from becoming a Major Incident. ▪ Several users with VIP status are affected.
Medium (M)	▪ The damage caused by the Incident increases substantially over time. ▪ The tasks, which can’t be fulfilled by the employees, are only moderately time-critical. ▪ A single user with VIP status is affected.
Low (L)	▪ The damage caused by the Incident increases only slightly in the course of time. ▪ The tasks, which can’t be fulfilled by the employees, are not time-critical.

3. Incident Priority also known as Severity Level

The Priority will be made dependent on Impact + Urgency.
For example a
High Impact + High Urgency will result in a Critical ticket priority or a
High Impact + Medium Urgency will result in a High ticket priority

according to the following data lookup rules:

H – High M – Medium L – Low

* Result in censhare Ticket:
Priority 1 = Critical = Production Critical
Priority 2 = High = Workaround possible
Priority 3 = Medium = Function Limited
Priority 4 = Low = Uncritical