According to the ITIL framework, a major incident is defined as an event which has significant impact for business and requires a response beyond the normal incident management process.
They can generally be sorted into to major incidents with direct customer impact and exclusively internal. Its of strategic importance to any organization to be prepared to handle both, specially when service level agreements has been signed.
A BIA or Business Impact Analysis is an overview analysis of all the possible issues and sources of business interruptions. They are often created by surveying selected members of a department, and include information such as relationships, processes and resources required for business continuity. Often they also include information about the most important applications and IT resources required to conduct business. This is why they are a valuable source information to prepare for major incident handling and defining what is a critical incident.
The main goals of major incident handling is to prepare detailed procedures and work instructions, that will ensure quick resolution times of major and critical incidents. This may mean having a cheat sheet with all the contacts or check list, implement monitoring services, train employees, follow daily reports, create scripts, or even, perform simulations.
The logging and investigation of severe high impact incidents is a must. Keeping track of such events and finding their root cause can assist with the prevention and with the development of a more stable business.
