10 REASONS

WHY YOUR IT INCIDENTS

AREN'T RESOLVED FASTER
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Despite continued advances with technology in todays digital world, information remains
our most valuable commodity. To an organization, the speed at which this information is
delivered, recognized and analyzed is critical to their success in effectively mitigating the
impact of an IT incident. In other words, Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) is best solved by
reducing the Mean Time to Know (MTTK). Information is knowledge, knowledge is
power, and effective communications provides the bridge to insure that knowledge is
shared.

With this in mind, lets take a look at 10 reasons your MTTK is not optimized and why
your IT incidents are not being resolved fast enough. We have also included several tips
to improve your performance and take your IT communications to the next level.

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10 Reasons Your IT Incidents Arent Resolved Faster

you may hear

reason #1
You have inefficient workflows between disparate
systems and point solutions.

I saw that a ticket is open. I will login

and check the monitoring system, look
in our binder to see who is on call,
email them, then update the ticket.

Why This Occurs Systems do not have the ability to integrate or the organization
has not committed the resources needed to implement integration.

Solution When the system monitoring and ticketing process involves managing
disparate solutions, manual efforts must be made to proactively communicate
information. Multiple logins and manual data entry creates extra workflow steps that
decrease efficiency. The goal should be to have your systems integrated, so that when a
problem occurs, the right information and resources needed to fix an issue are easily
accessible and automatically communicated to the correct teams, customers and
stakeholders. An alerting or communication platform that is integrated with your
monitoring and ITSM platforms, as well as your on-call schedules, can help facilitate this
and ensure information flows efficiently. To address organizational pushback, a
cost/benefit analysis that equates the time wasted on logins and copying data into
multiple areas into a dollar amount can also help make the business case to secure
resources for these integration projects.

you may hear

reason #2
Your geographically dispersed teams arent
consistently receiving messages or are too hard
to reach.

No one in the data center in India got

your text message.

Why This Occurs International communication standards vary country by country

and can require specific protocols and routing. For example, messages have to clear
Chinas Great Firewall and providers can have unique specifications per country.

Solution Ensure your international communications support global delivery with local
call routing, support for local caller ID, dedicated long and short codes for improved
international SMS delivery, automatic text-to-speech and prompts for multiple languages,
localized web user interface for individual / regional preferences, compliant and private
local data centers, and mobile app for those with limited cellular connectivity.
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you may hear

reason #3
Your after-action reporting is not sufficient enough
to improve future response.

We keep running into the same

problems when communicating
around incidents.

Why This Occurs If the same communication efficiency issues consistently occur
when communicating around incidents, you are not engaging in adequate process
review, after-action reporting and improvement.

Solution After-action reporting is the first step in analyzing incidents with the goal of
reducing MTTK. These reports should be accurate and contain relevant data on your
communication tactics. You should be able to tell what paths are most effective, how
long it takes to get a confirmation from on-call staff, how long it takes to set up a
conference bridge, and if your incident templates provides the necessary information.

you may hear

reason #4
Communications are limited to email and SMS.

You sent me an email? Sorry, I was

in a meeting and didnt have my
computer.

Why This Occurs Manually sending messages via multiple paths is time
consuming and difficult to track.

Solution Organizations should utilize automated multi-modal alerting to notify

contact paths (voice, SMS, EMAIL, push notification app, email, and/or pager) that are
most likely to reach recipients. Multi-modal alerting helps reduce missed messages due
to the different mechanisms in which messages are sent and received. For example, if a
text is sent to someone where a cell signal is not available, the message should be
automatically re-sent as a push notification so it can be received over a wireless network
on the recipients desktop or mobile phone. Additionally, a mobile app replaces the need
to hand off the on-call pager and pay monthly fees. In fact, according to Everbridge
research, multipath broadcasts have a 79% higher confirmation rate than a single path,
proving that individuals are more likely to engage with messages that are delivered to
multiple devices.

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you may hear

reason #5
You cant coordinate whos doing what (and
whos not doing what).

You are working on that server error?

I didnt know that.

Why This Occurs Because of the many communication challenges already listed
in this white paper, it can be difficult to collaborate and get a confirmation that a message
was received or that someone has responded to the issue/task at hand.

Solution Your process needs to include the ability to confirm message receipt as
well as to confirm acceptance of tasks. Confirmation of messages ensures responders
are on the case, and can also halt escalation to stopping further inquiry emails, limiting
alert fatigue. This is especially important with system-triggered workflows; for example,
your monitoring platform can trigger incident messages and tracking receipts, which are
critical to confirming that messages are being received/acted upon.

you may hear

reason #6
You have an overlap of communication systems.

The production team didnt get the

email; you have to alert them through
their pager system.

Why This Occurs As companies grow, reorganize, and acquire, different teams
may have different communication solutions. The incident management team may use a
free mobile app while the network monitoring team may rely on traditional call trees and
phones/ voicemails. When interdepartmental communication is required, multiple
communication systems hamper the ability to collaborate.

Solution Companies should implement unified critical communication so that teams

throughout the organization are communicating on one platform. In addition to improving
the transfer of information, this will ensure that information is presented in a consistent
manner. For example, ticketing data points can be standardized so teams can anticipate
what to expect.

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you may hear

reason #7
You have no easy way to escalate issues to the
right team.

The sysadmin is out of town. Does

anyone know who else has SQL
experience and can check the server?

Why This Occurs Lack of automation on escalation paths.

Solution Automation should ensure that if the first on-call person or team does not
respond, then the notification automatically escalates to the next person or group based
on the current on-call schedule.

you may hear

reason #8
Your team is overwhelmed with alerts and
ignore/miss the important ones

I get so many messages that dont

apply to me; I missed that last request.

Why This Occurs Alert fatigue occurs because it is easier to communicate out to
as many people as possible so as not to miss anyone, and rely on recipients to filter
messages for relevance, resulting in messages being sent to people who have no
responsibility towards an issue.

Solution If you cant tell what is high priority, nothing is high priority. For various
incident types, trigger notifications can be automatically launched from your monitoring
and operations systems and connect to your ticketing and communication systems
where they can be automatically escalated to the right people. Communication templates
should include the proper recipients and escalation paths, and these templates should
be easily updated when staff movers through or out of the organization. If updating
templates requires custom coding, they are less likely to be updated and your
organization will be less prepared.

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you may hear

reason #9
You cant get everyone on a conference bridge
quickly.

Is the CTO on the conference bridge?

What about the production team? Can
someone ping them?

Why This Occurs The process of receiving a conference bridge notification,

finding a pen and paper to write down the number and pin to dial back in, can take too
long when every second counts

Solution A communications platform that offers one-click conference bridge

functionality ensures that the right team members can join a call seamlessly and quickly.

you may hear

reason #10
You have difficulty communicating with
executives, internal staff, and external vendors.

Please set up a meeting with the

executive team to assess the impact of
this incident; we need to formulate our
response to media and clients.

Why This Occurs Often the staff with the greatest understanding of an incident, its
impact, and timeline for resolution are the same staff that need to describe these incident
details outside of the IT team. Time taken to communicate about the incident to
executives takes away from time spent resolving the incident.but it is still critical.

Solution Communication to groups outside of the IT team should be done as

efficiently as possible; the best way to attain this efficiency is by using consistent
systems and processes for incident communication to both IT and non-IT teams.

Conclusion
IT incidents are unpredictable but a communication strategy can help you be prepared
for the unexpected. It is likely that these 10 items will constantly be in a state of
improvement, but an optimized IT incident communication strategy will help you focus
more time triaging and less time searching for the right team members.

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About Everbridge
Everbridge provides a unified critical communication suite that helps clients be better
prepared, make better decisions, and respond quickly and confidently during disruptive
events. When an incident happens, whether its a natural disaster or an IT service
outage, we automate communications to ensure that the right messages get to the right
people at the right time.
Widely recognized by analysts as the market leader, Everbridge solutions are trusted by
clients in all major industries and government sectors to connect with over 50 million
people around the world.

THE ONLY END-TO-END PLATFORM

Planning: Everbridge is easy to set up, maintain, and organize, meaning that
youre always ready for a quick, coordinated response. Everbridge ensures that the
right messages get to the right people - with the most advanced opt-in portal on the
market, streamlined integration with internal and external data sources, and simple
group and contact management.

Assessment: When trouble strikes, you need rich insight, presented simply - so
you can quickly assess potential impact and make an informed decision to avoid
loss. Everbridge offers the only solution on the market that meets these demanding
requirements, with the most advanced interactive dashboard in the industry.

Response: In critical situations, ease-of-use can mean the difference between an

effective response and a mistake that carries serious consequences. Everbridge is
engineered to be simple to use under pressure, with a user interface that
accelerates time-to-message and reduces the likelihood of errors.

Delivery: Even during large-scale disruptions, Everbridge stays on. The most
advanced platform in the industry ensures that you reach your contacts - every
time. And with worldwide coverage and capabilities, including globally local calling
infrastructure and data storage, were ready to support you wherever your people
are in the world.

Visit www.everbridge.com to learn more.

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