Resources > What is Incident Management?
Incident Management: What It Is, How It Works, and the Software to Run It
Effective incident management keeps your organisation resilient. Whether you’re restoring a critical IT service or preventing workplace injuries, the goal is the same: capture issues fast, coordinate the response, resolve them safely, and learn so they don’t happen again.
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Explore our solutions by use case:
What is Incident Management?
Incident management is the structured process teams use to respond to unplanned events that reduce service quality, safety, or compliance—and return operations to a normal, controlled state. In IT/DevOps, that might be a service outage or degraded performance. In EHS, it could be a near-miss, injury, or environmental spill. The common thread: clear ownership, rapid communication, and continuous improvement.
A Practical Incident Management Process
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Capture & Triage
Log incidents in real time from any source (forms, email, monitoring, mobile). Classify by type, severity, and impact to route work quickly. -
Prioritise & Assess
Evaluate business risk, affected users, SLAs, and regulatory implications. Set severity/priority consistently. -
Investigate & Communicate
Run structured investigations, collaborate in a shared channel, and provide timely updates to stakeholders and customers. -
Resolve & Recover
Apply fixes, validate service restoration or site safety, and track Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA) to closure. -
Learn & Prevent (Post-Incident Review)
Perform root cause analysis (RCA), document lessons learned, and link to risks/controls to prevent recurrence.
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KPIs to track: MTTA/MTTR, incident volume by category, SLA attainment, recurrence rate, Lost Time Injury (LTI), and corrective-action completion.
​Workplace Incident Management (Health & Safety of Workers)
Purpose: Keep people safe, reduce disruptions on the shop floor, and build a proactive safety culture.
What you manage: Injuries and first aids, near-misses, unsafe acts/conditions, spills, environmental releases, vehicle incidents.
How it works
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Capture & triage: Log incidents from mobile or web, attach photos/evidence, categorise by type and severity.
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Investigate & prevent: Run structured investigations and RCA, assign Corrective & Preventive Actions (CAPA) with due dates and owners.
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Analyse & improve: Track trends by site, shift, activity, equipment; automate notifications and audit trails.
KPIs to track
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TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate), DART, LTI/LTIFR, near-miss ratio, CAPA completion time, repeat-incident rate.
Who benefits: HSE managers, site leaders, operations, HR.
Enterprise Incident Management (Compliance & Other Business Risks)
Purpose: Reduce risk exposure, protect reputation, and demonstrate regulatory compliance across the organisation.
What you manage: Policy breaches, data handling issues, third-party failures, control breakdowns, process exceptions, customer-impacting incidents.
How it works
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Capture & classify: Standardise categories (process, control, regulation, business unit, third party).
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Investigate & control: Link incidents to risks and controls, record evidence, run RCA, raise policy exceptions where appropriate.
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Remediate & report: Track actions to closure, measure control effectiveness, and produce audit-ready reports.
KPIs to track
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Time to containment/closure, recurrence rate, control deficiency closure time, SLA attainment, audit findings remediated, regulatory reporting timeliness.
Who benefits: Risk & compliance teams, internal audit, divisional leaders, executive oversight.
Workplace vs. Enterprise Incident Management
Use Workplace (EHS) if your priority is:
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Reducing injuries, LTI, and downtime on site
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Managing CAPA tied to equipment, activities, shifts, or locations
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Meeting HSE regulations and strengthening safety culture
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Use Enterprise (GRC) if your priority is:
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Proving compliance and audit readiness across processes and controls
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Reducing repeat policy/control failures and third-party risk
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Standardising incident workflows across business units and functions
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Use Both when:
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You operate in regulated industries and have physical operations (e.g., manufacturing, energy, logistics, healthcare).
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You want one platform with fit-for-purpose modules: EHS for worker safety; GRC for enterprise risk and compliance—shared analytics, consistent incident management process, and unified reporting.
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Integration tips
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EHS: Connect HR/time & attendance and safety training; feed site metrics (TRIR/LTI) into enterprise dashboards.
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GRC: Integrate Jira/ITSM for tech incidents, policy management for attestations, and BI for board-level reporting.
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Cross-link: Map EHS incidents to enterprise risks where relevant to show how safety performance impacts overall risk posture.
Incident Management Software: What To Look For
The right platform blends workflow, analytics, and communication:
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Fast capture & categorisation with configurable forms and evidence uploads
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Ownership & SLAs with assignments, escalations, and approvals
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Investigation & RCA templates; link incidents to risks, controls, and compliance requirements
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CAPA tracking with due dates, assignees, and status visibility
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Dashboards & reporting (heat maps, trend lines, exportable reports)
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Real-time alerts & on-call integrations to mobilise responders quickly
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Audit trails & regulatory reporting for accountability
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Integrations (e.g., ticketing and BI tools) to keep data in sync
Why the Best Teams Choose Optial
Purpose-built suites you can mix & match
Optial offers two core solutions—GRC SmartStart and EHS SmartStart—with modular components you can combine, including fully custom solutions when you want both worlds in one programme
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Frictionless reporting that people actually use
A no-login, mobile-friendly Webcapture form drives submissions, while API integrations (e.g., JIRA) keep incidents synced and stakeholders auto-notified. Read More...
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From root cause to closure
Structured investigations with RCA, linked risks/controls, and CAPA workflows (owners, due dates, status) turn incidents into prevention and measurable outcomes.
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See the signal, not the noise
Role-based dashboards, heat maps, and interactive geographic views make trends obvious and action-oriented for leaders and frontline teams alike. Read More...
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Configurable to suit you
Build your stack your way—use fully configurable modules, or have us tailor a solution around your processes. For example, we integrated Optial and Jira for a Stockholm-headquartered bank so priority incidents are mirrored between both systems and stakeholders are auto-notified as records update. Read More...
Incident Management FAQs
What’s the difference between an incident and a problem?
An incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in service/safety; the goal is fast restoration. A problem is the underlying cause of one or more incidents; the goal is to eliminate the root cause (via RCA/CAPA).
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What is a major incident?
A high-impact incident with urgent, cross-team response. Define clear criteria (severity, customer/staff impact, regulatory exposure), assign a Major Incident Lead, and use a comms plan/status updates until closure.
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How do you prioritise incidents?
Use an impact × urgency matrix to assign severity levels and SLAs. Impact = breadth/business risk; Urgency = time sensitivity. Prioritisation drives ownership, escalation, and timelines.
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What should an incident report include?
Who/what/when/where, evidence (photos/logs), initial containment, impact, classifications (type, severity, location/business unit), suspected causes, CAPA actions, and approvals/closure notes.
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What is CAPA and how is it different from corrective actions alone?
Corrective actions remove the cause of a detected issue; Preventive actions remove the cause of a potential issue. Track both with owners, due dates, and effectiveness checks.
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What are the 5 stages of the incident management process?
A practical 5-stage model used by many teams is:
Capture & log → 2) Categorise & prioritise → 3) Investigate & communicate → 4) Resolve & recover → 5) Close & learn (RCA, lessons learned, CAPA).
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What are the 7 steps of incident management?
If you need a little more granularity, use this 7-step flow:
Detect & report → 2) Record & acknowledge → 3) Classify (type, impact) → 4) Prioritise & assign → 5) Investigate & escalate (as needed) → 6) Resolve & recover → 7) Close & review (document, run a PIR).
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Can we link incidents to risks, controls, and policies?
Yes—this is core to GRC Incident Management. Link each incident to its risk/control context to see control effectiveness, residual risk, and recurring themes.
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What are the three types of incidents?
There isn’t one global standard—it depends on your domain. Common triads you’ll see:
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Workplace/EHS:
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Injury/illness or exposure, 2. Injury-free (near-miss/close call), 3. Property or environmental damage.
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IT/Enterprise (ITSM):
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Major incident (high-impact, cross-service), 2. Incident (normal), 3. Security incident (confidentiality/integrity/availability at risk).
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What is the RIDDOR 7-day rule?
In the UK, under RIDDOR 2013, if a worker is incapacitated for more than 7 consecutive days because of a work-related accident (not counting the day of the accident; weekends/rest days do count), you must report it. The report must be submitted within 15 days of the incident via HSE’s online form. Keep records as required.
