Management system standards, especially those dealing with security and interruptions of business processes, use the term \u201cincident management.\u201d As these management system standards deal with different aspects of managing business processes (IT Service Management, Information Security, Business Continuity, Supply Chain Security, and possibly others), the term is widely used but possesses a different meaning, depending on the context. On top of that, many of the standards also use the term \u201cevent.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to simplify things, let us try to explain the relationship between \u201cevent\u201d and \u201cincident,\u201d ISO\/IEC Guide 73 (an ISO risk management vocabulary) defines an event as an \u201coccurrence that would change a particular set of circumstances.\u201d As this is not clear, ISO 22301:2012<\/a> uses as many as four notes in order to better explain the definition of an event. The authors of this definition probably thought of events as being a kind of (sudden) change without a negative outcome. For example, an event may not have negative implications at all \u2013 something just changes (e.g., one out of three air conditioning packs is switched off because of maintenance).<\/p>\n As such, the term \u201cevent\u201d might be used as a neutral expression. \u201cIncidents,\u201d on the contrary, might possess a negative meaning, according to their definition in different ISO standards. For example, if the switching off of the third air conditioning pack immediately overloads and shuts down the remaining two packs, the event developed into an incident.<\/p>\n Find more explanations of the standards\u2019 terminology in the article Explanation of the basic terminology in ISO standards<\/a>.
\n