In the context of service management, it is crucial to ensure the resolution of interruptions and that the service continues to be efficient. In this sense, two processes are essential: Incident Management and Problem Management.
Both ensure the functioning of a service by checking interruptions and their root causes. However, as they are so closely linked, it is easy to think that the two processes have the same function. But that is not true!
In this article, you will understand the difference between Incident Management and Problem Management, and what each one is important for.
Incident and Problem: two fundamental terms
To understand what Incident Management and Problem Management do, it is necessary to take a step back and remember two fundamental terms in this context: Incident and Problem.
According to ISO/IEC 20000, an Incident can be defined as “an unplanned interruption of a service, a reduction in the quality of a service, or an event that has not yet impacted the service to the customer or user.” In fact, it is a definition very similar to what we find in the ITIL glossary.
The definition of a Problem is “a cause of one or more actual or potential incidents.” That is, the problem would be the reason for an interruption or incident.
Want an example? Think about the instability that recently hit Facebook and Instagram. This instability ended up taking both social networks down for a few minutes. Later, Facebook, the owner of the apps, reported that “a configuration change caused Facebook services to become unavailable.”
So, in this case, the incident would be the service instability, and the problem (root cause of the incident) would be that configuration change disclosed by Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
With the two terms explained, it becomes easier to understand what Incident Management and Problem Management are.
What is Incident Management?
As you can suspect from the name of the process, Incident Management is responsible for interruptions in services. Its goal is to get the service back up and running as quickly as possible, without necessarily finding or fixing the root cause (problem) of that incident.
In this process, there are also major incidents, which are the responsibility of an organization’s senior management.
In the example you read about the interruption in the Facebook service, and in any example, it is difficult to define what a major incident would be. This happens because the organization itself defines a criterion for declaring an incident as severe or not.
So, to summarize, incident management records, prioritizes, escalates (if necessary), resolves, and closes an incident.
What is Problem Management?
If Incident Management deals only with interruptions, Problem Management will focus on the root cause of the problems that cause these incidents. It identifies the reasons why incidents happened. This way, they ensure that such an incident does not happen again.
Returning again to the example of Facebook, the Problem Management process would register the root cause of the incident (a configuration change). Thus, every time it was necessary to make an adjustment in this sense, those responsible would know what they should and should not do when changing a configuration.
Like incidents, problems must be recorded, prioritized, and resolved, and this resolution may bring some change to service management. In this case, it may be necessary to raise a Change Request (CR).
It is worth noting that, if the root cause is identified, but there is no immediate solution, the organization should list actions to reduce or mitigate its impact. Thus, Problem Management lists all known errors, making incidents less frequent.
With all that said, it becomes easier to understand the proximity between Problem Management and Incident Management.
So, is it clear what the difference is between the two processes? Leave your comment if you have any doubts!
English 
