Being prepared for incidents is critical for effective communication. Pre-incident planning aligns your team with the tools and processes to respond effectively while keeping stakeholders informed. 

All great incident response teams start with a plan. Think of this as the pre-work to nailing how you communicate during incidents.

Define an incident & set severity levels #

A clear definition of "incident" and a solid understanding of severity levels set your team up for success from the start. Without this alignment, your team won’t be able to respond in a unified way.

Defining an incident #

First, you need to know what scenarios qualify as an incident. Defining what an incident means to your organization gets everyone on the same page and ensures incidents are declared consistently. 

A clear definition distinguishes incidents from bugs, prevents unnecessary escalations, streamlines your response process, and ensures resources are allocated appropriately. 

Sorry’s definition of an incident: An incident is any unplanned disruption, degradation, or issue with a service, system, or process that requires urgent attention and diverts focus from planned work to restore normal operations.

Severity levels #

In addition to defining an incident, you should establish incident severity levels. A shared understanding of severity levels allows you to prioritize incidents, allocate resources, and standardize your communication approach. Severity levels typically range from a 3 to 5 scale system. For example:

• SEV 1: Critical incident with major impact.
• SEV 2: Major incident with moderate impact.
• SEV 3: Minor incident with low impact.

Many organizations create a priority matrix to help determine the severity of incidents. The ITIL incident management priority matrix is a great starting point.