What Is Incident Analysis

The incident analysis procedure aids in reducing the negative effects of occurrences as rapidly as possible and returning to normal service functioning. Whether the service outage is caused by a crashed laptop, corrupted data, or an excruciatingly slow programme, how we react and handle it shows how effective our incident analysis strategy is.

Incident analysis helps in determining:

1. What happened when the outage happened
2. What all devices were affected by the outage
3. Details on system components involved and
4. How the issue was resolved.

The incident analysis is carried out by analysing the information gathered from the event and insights drawn from the data. The incident analysis technique helps in improving resilience for future

Listed below are a few methods to carry out the incident analysis. Keep on reading to know more.

Various Incident Analysis Methods

Root Cause Analysis

The process of root cause analysis involves creating a diagram that shows the connections between the causes of an occurrence. Finding the event’s Root Causes is the goal of the procedure. The likelihood that the incident—and additional incidents with the same Root Causes—will recur is reduced by resolving the concerns detailed in the Root Causes. Three categories of causes are distinguished in the Root Causes Analysis diagram: Immediate Causes, Underlying Causes, and Root Causes.

The 5 Why Method

To comprehend the cause/effect link of a specific situation, this technique is used. Finding the core cause of an event or problem is the ultimate purpose of using the 5 Whys method. The goal is to inquire as to why an event occurred and then inquire further as to why a response was provided, etc., until you identify the actual cause of the occurrence.

Tripod Beta

The Tripod Beta technique examines whether barriers have been breached during an incident, the error or mistake committed, the working environment element that enabled this, and ultimately the latent failure in the organisation that resulted in that mechanism. There are three steps in a Tripod Beta analysis process:

Step 1: Describing the sequence of circumstances that happened before effects.

Step 2: Identifying the impediments that might have prevented this series of events.

Step 3: Determining the cause of each barrier that was breached. This again is broken down into three categories: organisational failure (Latent Failure), human failure (Active Failure), and factors affecting the workplace (Preconditions).

The Human Error Theory is taken into consideration while determining the cause of the barrier breach.

Event Tree

Analysis of event sequences that occur after an initiating event, uses the Event Tree analysis approach. The risks and benefits of each potential course of action can be viewed holistically using event trees. The simplicity of the procedure is one of its appeals. A bottom-up inductive approach is used in event tree analysis.

SCAT

The SCAT (Systematic Cause Analysis Technique)  approach helps the user step-by-step to go backwards from the loss to determine where the organisation lacks control over flaws that caused the incident to happen. It utilises a vertical root cause analysis methodology and the DNV “Loss of Causation Model.” The analysis is based on predefined types of loss events, their probable fundamental causes, and recommendations for a management system structure for corrective activities.

Incident Analysis Process

Step 1: Forming an Incident Analysis Team

Step 2: Gathering information to build an initial understanding of the incident.

Step 3: Developing a final understanding and timeline.

Step 4: Identifying the underlying causes and reasons behind them.

Step 5: Developing problem statement

Step 6: Forming an action plan

Step 7: Implementing actions.

With an emphasis on increasing service reliability, the incident analysis seeks to understand the significance of incidents in the IT sector as well as the causes of problems and insights drawn from them. We can identify problems earlier, stop them from happening again, and speed up recovery by adopting techniques.

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