I have come across multiple project managers and teams managing Level 2 and
Level 3 IT support projects who struggle to articulate the EXACT definitions
of Priority, Severity and Impact. Also these 3 terms (especially Priority
and Severity) are used interchangeably by project teams. Here is my small
attempt to explain the same with some examples.
Impact is the way in which an Incident affects the core business or revenue of the organization. A high impact defect has the potential to stop core business operations or even cause revenue losses. Typically Impact of the Incident does not change with time. Below you can see sample definition of various levels of impact. These
can be changed or modified as per the business you or your team is supporting.
3-Low: Defects impacting functions that have a low/negligible impact on key business process. Reasonable workaround exists.
2-Medium: Urgent incident which should be treated quickly
3-Low: Incident that is not urgent and resolution can wait for some time
Priority is defined as a combination of Impact and Urgency (Priority=Impact X Urgency) and is defined as per the below table
Hope the above definitions and examples will clarify the differences and relations between all 3 terms. Please feel free to comment with your views.
![Related image](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/priority-stamp-icon-illustration-priority-stamp-icon-white-background-107715805.jpg)
1-High: Defects
resulting in failure of key Organization business processes impacting revenue.
There is no work around available.
2-Medium: Defects impacting business processes. Key components are down and major functions are not working. No immediate / serious impact but has potential to affect revenues. Unreasonable work around exists.
2-Medium: Defects impacting business processes. Key components are down and major functions are not working. No immediate / serious impact but has potential to affect revenues. Unreasonable work around exists.
3-Low: Defects impacting functions that have a low/negligible impact on key business process. Reasonable workaround exists.
Urgency suggests
the amount of delay acceptable in resolving a particular incident and is always associated with time. A high
urgency incident will have minimal acceptable delay in resolution. The
Urgency of the Incident can increase as the age of the Incident increases.
1-High: Very urgent
incident which should be treated as quickly as possible
1-High:
2-Medium: Urgent incident which should be treated quickly
3-Low: Incident that is not urgent and resolution can wait for some time
Priority is defined as a combination of Impact and Urgency (Priority=Impact X Urgency) and is defined as per the below table
Impact
|
||||
Urgency
|
1-High
|
2-Medium
|
3-Low
|
|
1-High
|
P1
|
P2
|
P3
|
|
2-Medium
|
P2
|
P3
|
P4
|
|
3-Low
|
P3
|
P4
|
P5
|
Below example will help you to understand the above definitions better
Example: Incident logged that a particular feature has to be added on www.phutwa.com site effective 31-Dec which
will increase user hit rate on website. For this to happen QA team need to
provide sign off on this feature in lower environment by 01-Dec.
Development team started working on the feature, but while testing it in lower
environments team found it had some defects.
- 01-Nov: On 01-Nov, the defect will have Impact: Medium,
Urgency: Low
- 20-Nov: If still unresolved, Impact:Medium,
Urgency will change to Medium
- 30-Nov: If still unresolved, Impact:Medium,
Urgency will change to High
In
the above example Urgency of the defect remains same but its Urgency keeps on
increases as we reach near to a critical date of 01-Dec.
Hope the above definitions and examples will clarify the differences and relations between all 3 terms. Please feel free to comment with your views.
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