Here are key characteristics and steps associated with ServiceNow Major Incidents:

Characteristics of a Major Incident:

1. Significant Impact: Major Incidents typically involve severe disruptions, such as service outages, data breaches, or widespread IT failures, which affect a large number of users or critical business processes.

2. High Visibility: Major Incidents often draw the attention of senior management and executives due to their significant impact on the organization.

3. Urgent Response: Major Incidents require a rapid and coordinated response from IT teams to minimize the duration and impact of the incident.

Steps in Managing a Major Incident in ServiceNow:

1. Incident Identification: The process begins with identifying an incident as a potential Major Incident. This can be triggered by various means, such as automated monitoring tools, user reports, or other detection mechanisms.

2. Major Incident Declaration: Once identified, the incident manager or a designated authority declares it as a Major Incident. This step is essential to initiate the special handling of the incident.

3. Incident Coordination: ServiceNow provides tools for coordinating the response to a Major Incident. This includes the assignment of incident managers and specific response teams responsible for resolving the issue.

4. Communication: Effective communication is crucial during a Major Incident. ServiceNow allows for the creation of communication plans and notifications to inform stakeholders, including users, management, and support teams, about the incident and its progress.

5. Prioritization: Major Incidents are given the highest priority and are often worked on to the exclusion of other tasks until the incident is resolved. ServiceNow facilitates priority management and escalations.

6. Task Management: Major Incidents may require multiple tasks to be performed concurrently, such as troubleshooting, applying fixes, or restoring services. ServiceNow’s task management capabilities help coordinate these efforts.

7. Incident Resolution: The primary goal of a Major Incident is to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. ServiceNow tracks the incident’s status and progress towards resolution.

8. Post-Incident Review: After the Major Incident is resolved, a post-incident review or analysis is conducted to identify the root cause, document lessons learned, and implement preventive measures to avoid future incidents.

9. Closure and Documentation: The Major Incident is formally closed in ServiceNow, and all relevant documentation, including resolution details and reports, is archived for reference.

10. Continuous Improvement: ServiceNow allows organizations to use data and insights from Major Incidents to continuously improve incident management processes and overall system reliability.