Structured template for documenting, escalating, and resolving IT incidents with severity classification and post-mortem analysis.
When IT incidents occur, having a structured response process minimises downtime and prevents recurring issues. This template provides UK businesses with a clear framework for documenting incidents, classifying severity, escalating appropriately, and conducting thorough post-mortem reviews. It ensures nothing falls through the cracks during high-pressure situations and builds a valuable knowledge base for future incident prevention.
IT support teams, helpdesk managers, and managed service providers supporting UK businesses who need a consistent approach to incident management.
Define severity levels with clear response expectations, document escalation paths by incident type, and prepare stakeholder communication templates in advance. Most UK SMEs also build in a post-mortem step so recurring issues get a permanent fix rather than being patched repeatedly.
A common four-tier model classifies incidents as critical (business-wide outage), high (major function affected), medium (limited impact with workaround), and low (minor or cosmetic issue). Each tier should have a matching response time target so priorities are clear under pressure.
A post-mortem is a structured review conducted after an incident is resolved, identifying the root cause, timeline of events, and preventative actions. Most UK organisations run these for P1 and P2 incidents, documenting findings so the same failure does not recur.
Fill in the incident details, severity classification, and timeline as the issue unfolds, then follow the escalation flowchart if it is not resolved within target. This template also includes stakeholder communication wording and a post-mortem section to complete once service is restored.
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