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Priority, impact, and urgency

Priority is how an individual service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem fits into the ongoing sequence of tasks required to close the interaction, change request, incident, or problem. It also indicates how soon the work should begin. Determining the priority of a single service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem depends on how many other defects need attention, the risk of delay, and the resources available to fix it.

Impact is the potential business vulnerability. There is no global value; it is subjective and each business must set and modify its own impact value list.

Urgency is a value that reflects how soon the defect must be resolved to avoid business consequences. It identifies how soon you must react to avert or reduce the impact of the defect on customers.

Assigning values to impact and urgency is subjective. Priority is a HPE Service Manager calculation based on the values you specify for impact and urgency. As you can experience assigning impact and urgency values, you will refine your decision criteria. A service desk interaction, change request, incident, or problem that is isolated can have a low impact initially, but a high urgency because of the potential for damage if the defect becomes widespread. For example, a new computer virus is a problem that can escalate quickly.