What is the primary goal of incident management?

The primary goal of incident management is to maintain system availability and quality services. This process is essential for ensuring that IT services continue to function effectively, minimizing interruptions and downtime for users and the organization as a whole. By focusing on restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible while ensuring that quality standards are met, incident management aims to mitigate the impact of incidents on business operations.

Inherent in maintaining system availability is the need to swiftly respond to and resolve incidents, which aligns with the objectives of enhancing user satisfaction and delivering dependable services. However, the primary emphasis remains on the availability and quality of services rendered rather than solely on user satisfaction or cost reduction, although these aspects can be important secondary outcomes.

While documenting issues can contribute to understanding systemic problems and improving future responses, it does not encapsulate the core function of incident management, which is rooted in maintaining operational continuity. Thus, the focus on availability and quality services is what distinctly defines the primary objective of incident management.