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What is Incident Management?
Major Incident Management (MIM) is the formal process IT uses to identify, respond to, and resolve high-priority IT service disruptions that significantly impact university operations. The primary goal during an active incident is to minimize downtime and restore normal service as quickly as possible.
When an issue is reported, the IT-Service Management (ITSM) team evaluates the disruption against three criteria to make an immediate priority call.
| Criteria |
Core Evaluation Criteria |
Operational Consideration |
| Impact |
What critical tasks are users prevented from performing? |
Evaluates downstream effects on teaching, research, payroll, or administration / staff. |
| Scope |
How many users, teams, or buildings are affected? |
Determines whether the issue is isolated to a few users or campus-wide. |
| Urgency |
Are workarounds available, and what is the timing? |
Considers operational deadlines (e.g., final exam week vs. off-hours maintenance). |
When a major incident is declared, the ITSM team immediately coordinates response teams and communication channels to align technical experts, alert leadership, and keep the campus informed.
- The ITSM Team assembles IT leadership, technical SMEs, and sometimes third-party vendors on a dedicated troubleshooting bridge to diagnose the issue and implement a fix or workaround.
- The ITSM team alerts the UDIT CIO and senior leadership, providing high-level incident summaries and status updates.
- The UDIT Communications Group (ITCG) updates the UDIT Status Page and coordinates with the Office of Communication & Marketing (OCM) to send updates via official channels (often via email notifications) as needed.
When an IT disruption impacts your area or team, follow these simple guidelines:
- Visit the official UDIT Status Page to view current system health, known outage details, and real-time status updates.
- Watch for emails sent through official IT or OCM channels for campus-wide updates.
- If you encounter a disruption that is not listed on the status page, report it to the IT Support Center (AskIT@udel.edu). The Support Center serves as the direct liaison between campus users and the IT response team, ensuring related user reports are linked together.
- Rely on official communications and the UDIT Status Page for updates so technical experts can remain focused on restoring the service.
Following impact mitigation, the ITSM Team completes a formal Post-Incident Review (PIR) to summarize the disruption and ensure long-term service stability.
The document created after the PIR Review is completed includes:
- Incident start and end times, impacted services, ticket volumes, and communication updates.
- The sequence of events and a root cause analysis completed in coordination with the service owner.
- Corrective tasks to prevent similar disruptions from happening again.
If you have any additional questions about Major Incident Management, Post-Incident Reporting, or need further guidance on these procedures, please reach out to the ITSM team at ITServiceMgmt@udel.edu.