Servicenow Priority Matrix

Servicenow Priority Matrix

One of the basic pieces of any ITIL-based incident management setup is a priority matrix. Impact and Urgency drive a Priority calculation that can then be used to prioritize work and drive SLAs (among other things). ServiceNow comes with these prioritization fields and also includes a default calculation for you. The priority score reflects the level of seriousness of the underlying alert, for example, an alert that has severity of Critical has a higher weighted value than an alert with a severity of Minor. Priority is not calculated for an alert that has a severity of OK. The available levels are: Critical.
Please reference the following guide for selecting an appropriate Impact and Urgency on the Incident form. 
Servicenow Priority Matrix ListImpactDescription
LowA minimal number of staff are affected and/or able to deliver an acceptable service but this requires extra effort.
A minimal number of customers are affected and/or inconvenienced but not in a significant way.
The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to be less than $1,000.
The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be minimal.
MediumA moderate number of staff are affected and/or not able to do their job properly.
A moderate number of customers are affected and/or inconvenienced in some way.
The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to exceed $1,000 but will not be more than $10,000.
The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be moderate.
HighA large number of staff are affected and/or not able to do their job.
A large number of customers are affected and/or acutely disadvantaged in some way.
The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to exceed $10,000.
The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be high.
Someone has been injured.
UrgencyDescription
LowThe damage caused by the Incident only marginally increases over time.
Work that cannot be completed by staff is not time sensitive.
MediumThe damage caused by the Incident increases considerably over time.
A single user with VIP status is affected.
HighThe damage caused by the Incident increases rapidly.
Work that cannot be completed by staff is highly time sensitive.
A minor Incident can be prevented from becoming a major Incident by acting immediately.
Several users with VIP status are affected.

Priority for 
Impact x Urgency
Impact
1 - High2 - Medium3 - Low
Urgency
1 - High1 - Critical2 - High3 - Moderate
2 - Medium2 - High3 - Moderate4 - Low
3 - Low3 - Moderate4 - Low5 - Planning
Kempter, Stefan. Checklist Incident Priority. AXELOS Limited. Web. 12 Aug. 2015. http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.com/index.php/Checklist_Incident_Priority
The Priority is derived from the Impact and the Urgency, based on the context of an organization. Octopus can derive automatically an incident priority by selecting the impact and urgency of an incident.
This section provides few examples to help you in defining your priority level.
You can also use the worksheet IM - Priorities - Standard service levels, which contains hints and models to help you formally establish priorities and service levels.
ATTENTION: Generally, priorities are defined and used to resolve incidents in an effective way; it is not necessary to use priorities for Service Requests, as an execution target is to be defined for each Service Request type.

Impact measure the effect of an incident on business processes. We can evaluate the impact based on several criteria: The number of affected users.
The potential financial losses.
The number of affected services.
Breaches of regulations or laws.
The reputation of the company.
Other reasons.
Urgency is the time it takes to an incident to have a significant impact on business. a period where a system is considered as more critical
when some systems are identified critical with a high availability level
Priority is based on impact and urgency and is used to identify required times for actions to be taken. The allocation of a priority code determines how the incident is being taken care of by the tool and the support staff. In Octopus, using the fields impact and urgency is optional to obtain a priority.
Priority MatrixUse the following matrix as a sample to help you in establishing your own priority derivation Matrix. Its impact criterion is based on a number of users. It's built on 3 impact and 2 urgency levels, leading to 4 priority levels (as pre-configured in Octopus). The levels and their terminology of this model can be modified and adapted to your context.
Servicenow Priority LevelsThe following table is a model suggesting you how could be defined a Priority Level. 
The description for each Priority depends on the context of your organization, and on the criteria that you may need to consider when the time comes to the Service Desk Agent to establish an Incident Priority. A resolution target will be set for each Priority; the objective is to resolve incidents within this delay.
Priority
Name
Description

 Resolution
P1
Critical
Interruption making a critical functionality inaccessible or a complete network interruption causing a severe impact on services availability. There is no possible alternative.
4 hours
P2
Important
Critical functionality or network access interrupted, degraded or unusable, having a severe impact on services availability. No acceptable alternative is possible.
24 hours
P3
Normal
Non-critical function or procedure, unusable or hard to use having an operational impact, but with no direct impact on services availability. A workaround is available.
3 days
P4
Low
Application or personal procedure unusable, where a workaround is available or a repair is possible.
5 days

Priority	Name	Description	Resolution
P1	Critical	Interruption making a critical functionality inaccessible or a complete network interruption causing a severe impact on services availability. There is no possible alternative.	4 hours
P2	Important	Critical functionality or network access interrupted, degraded or unusable, having a severe impact on services availability. No acceptable alternative is possible.	24 hours
P3	Normal	Non-critical function or procedure, unusable or hard to use having an operational impact, but with no direct impact on services availability. A workaround is available.	3 days
P4	Low	Application or personal procedure unusable, where a workaround is available or a repair is possible.	5 days

It is possible to configure Response Delays for each priority - This must be configured by the Octopus team directly in your database. Contact us to benefit from this configuration. 
Octopus offers specialized workshops that are adapted to your organization in order to help you formalize certain ITIL concepts. Contact us for more information on these or other workshops.

Impact measure the effect of an incident on business processes. We can evaluate the impact based on several criteria: The number of affected users.
The potential financial losses.
The number of affected services.
Breaches of regulations or laws.
The reputation of the company.
Other reasons.
Urgency is the time it takes to an incident to have a significant impact on business. a period where a system is considered as more critical
when some systems are identified critical with a high availability level
Priority is based on impact and urgency and is used to identify required times for actions to be taken. The allocation of a priority code determines how the incident is being taken care of by the tool and the support staff. In Octopus, using the fields impact and urgency is optional to obtain a priority.
Priority MatrixUse the following matrix as a sample to help you in establishing your own priority derivation Matrix. Its impact criterion is based on a number of users. It's built on 3 impact and 2 urgency levels, leading to 4 priority levels (as pre-configured in Octopus). The levels and their terminology of this model can be modified and adapted to your context.
Servicenow Priority LevelsThe following table is a model suggesting you how could be defined a Priority Level. 
The description for each Priority depends on the context of your organization, and on the criteria that you may need to consider when the time comes to the Service Desk Agent to establish an Incident Priority. A resolution target will be set for each Priority; the objective is to resolve incidents within this delay.
Priority
Name
Description

 Resolution
P1
Critical
Interruption making a critical functionality inaccessible or a complete network interruption causing a severe impact on services availability. There is no possible alternative.
4 hours
P2
Important
Critical functionality or network access interrupted, degraded or unusable, having a severe impact on services availability. No acceptable alternative is possible.
24 hours
P3
Normal
Non-critical function or procedure, unusable or hard to use having an operational impact, but with no direct impact on services availability. A workaround is available.
3 days
P4
Low
Application or personal procedure unusable, where a workaround is available or a repair is possible.
5 days
It is possible to configure Response Delays for each priority - This must be configured by the Octopus team directly in your database. Contact us to benefit from this configuration. 
Octopus offers specialized workshops that are adapted to your organization in order to help you formalize certain ITIL concepts. Contact us for more information on these or other workshops.
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Impact	Description
Low	A minimal number of staff are affected and/or able to deliver an acceptable service but this requires extra effort. A minimal number of customers are affected and/or inconvenienced but not in a significant way. The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to be less than $1,000. The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be minimal.
Medium	A moderate number of staff are affected and/or not able to do their job properly. A moderate number of customers are affected and/or inconvenienced in some way. The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to exceed $1,000 but will not be more than $10,000. The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be moderate.
High	A large number of staff are affected and/or not able to do their job. A large number of customers are affected and/or acutely disadvantaged in some way. The financial impact of the Incident is (for example) likely to exceed $10,000. The damage to the reputation of the business is likely to be high. Someone has been injured.

Urgency	Description
Low	The damage caused by the Incident only marginally increases over time. Work that cannot be completed by staff is not time sensitive.
Medium	The damage caused by the Incident increases considerably over time. A single user with VIP status is affected.
High	The damage caused by the Incident increases rapidly. Work that cannot be completed by staff is highly time sensitive. A minor Incident can be prevented from becoming a major Incident by acting immediately. Several users with VIP status are affected.

Priority for Impact x Urgency	Impact
1 - High	2 - Medium	3 - Low
Urgency	1 - High	1 - Critical	2 - High	3 - Moderate
2 - Medium	2 - High	3 - Moderate	4 - Low
3 - Low	3 - Moderate	4 - Low	5 - Planning