Australian Conservation Foundation

Oftentimes the priority of an incident is incorrectly determined which may result in unsatisfactory response times. It is important we provide you a transparent and robust prioritisation method to ensure critical and time-bound incidents are resolved in an accurate and efficient manner.

An effective way to provide this is using the Prioritisation Matrix as shown below.

This matrix removes the guesswork and makes priority determination simple and structured. By specifying the impact and urgency of the incident we can set the priority.

Simply put, Priority = Impact x Urgency

To determine the impact and urgency we use the following definition table: 

Once the priority is determined a Service Level Agreement (SLA) will be applied to the incident ticket. This SLA may vary depending on the area of the Service Desk your incident relates to however every incident will receive prioritisation based on the related SLA. We will then action the incident accordingly.

Below are two examples of an e-mail incident and the determined priority each would receive:

Outlook client fails to open on a staff member’s workstation leaving them unable to send mail or view their calendar. They can view their mail and calendar through a web browser. Other staff in the office can open Outlook without issue.

• Impact – Low as less than 5 staff are affected
  
• Urgency – Low as the staff member can view their mail and calendar using a web browser
  
• Determined Priority = Low
  

This staff member can still access their mail and calendar via the browser therefore their working capacity is not affected.

Outlook client fails to send and receive new e-mail on a staff member’s workstation leaving them unable to receive or reply to electronic communication. They can view their existing mail and calendar in the client. All staff in the office experience the same issue.

• Impact – High as greater than 50% of staff are affected
  
• Urgency – Medium as staff members are limited in their work capacity
  
• Determined Priority = High
  

Due to the nature of today’s communication this will limit the ability of staff to perform their tasks however will not leave them unable to work.