Managing Incident Surge Problems: Incident surges caused by errant processes overwhelm service desks, straining resources and delaying resolution of real issues. Up to 30% of incidents stem from faulty processes, not actual incidents needing resolution. This creates problems, chaos, clogs workflow issues that leads to poor user satisfaction.

Manual ticket handling is inefficient and unsustainable. Teams need bulk management, AI tools, and streamlined workflows to regain control. This approach reduces backlogs, enhances productivity, and improves operational efficiency.

This guide outlines how to manage incident surges effectively, using best practices, AI-powered tools like ServiceNow’s Xanadu, and practical strategies to maintain control.

AI and human side of Managing Incident Surge Problems

“We are drowning in tickets! It’s wrong, and it’s overwhelming our operations. These incidents are pouring in, disrupting everything else. We’re not staffed for this, and the chaos needs to end!”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many teams face an incident firestorm caused by errant processes. The good news? You can take control. Learn how to manage an incident surge with proper analysis, bulk editing, streamlined workflows, and best practices designed to regain operational efficiency. Perfect for Service Desk Managers, Process Owners, and IT executives looking to improve incident resolution and reduce backlog chaos.

Managing thousands of tickets one at a time is not the answer. Process Best Practices and learning the new capabilities of AI is most certainly the best approach.

Time Comparison: Manual vs. Bulk vs. Xanadu Assistance

Task	Manual (One-by-One)	Bulk (Hundreds at Once)	Xanadu Agent Assistance
Acknowledging 1,000 tickets	16+ hours	1 hour	30 minutes (Xanadu automates acknowledgment via Virtual Agent)
Closing 1,000 tickets	20+ hours	2 hours	45 minutes (Xanadu automates closure for non-critical incidents)
Identifying Incident Trends	N/A	N/A	Immediate (Xanadu predicts trends and suggests solutions)
Auto-Creating Problem Records	N/A	N/A	Instant (Xanadu auto-generates problems based on incident triggers)

ServiceNow Xanadu: The Ultimate Tool for Managing Incident Surge Problems

Here’s a helpful video Justin Meadows produced showcasing ServiceNow’s Agent Assist feature for incident management. ServiceNow Agent Assist helps find relevant records and content using machine learning. Justin provides great explanation on how to use the feature to reduce resolution times and improve efficiency.

ServiceNow’s AI, Virtual Agent, and Predictive Intelligence are transformative in helping teams regain control and improve efficiency when managing large volumes of incidents. These features work together to streamline tasks:

• Incident Classification & Prioritization: Predictive Intelligence categorizes incidents while Virtual Agents engage with users, validating and escalating tickets automatically to reduce team workload.
• Trend Identification: AI analyzes data to uncover patterns and root causes, enabling teams to prevent future surges and address errant processes proactively.
• Automated Problem Creation: Predictive Intelligence auto-generates problem records based on triggers, grouping related incidents to accelerate resolution.
• Automated Acknowledgment & Closure: Virtual Agents handle acknowledgment and closure of non-critical tickets, significantly reducing backlog and freeing up team resources for more important tasks.

How ServiceNow Xanadu Enhances Incident Management

Xanadu takes these capabilities further with enhanced features designed to optimize incident handling:

• Real-Time Trend Prediction: It identifies emerging trends and root causes before they become overwhelming, helping teams act preemptively.
• Automatic Ticket Handling: Xanadu acknowledges, categorizes, and closes tickets, lightening the load on teams dealing with high volumes.
• Trigger-Based Problem Creation: It automatically generates problem records for incidents needing escalation, ensuring timely attention and resolution.

Managing Incident Surges Efficiently: A Balanced Approach

When incidents are automatically generated by flawed processes, the system can quickly become overwhelmed. However, by leveraging bulk editing tools, adhering to best practices, and anticipating potential pitfalls, incident management teams can maintain control. The right approach drastically reduces backlog, minimizes service disruptions, and ensures operational efficiency is maintained.

Executive Action Required: Managing Incident Surges to Prevent Global Disruptions

Remember CrowdStrike, where a single faulty process update triggered a global outage? Understanding what’s causing an incident is critical for managing it effectively. When there’s an outage that must be fixed to restore service, it’s a Major Incident. When a volume of incidents is caused by a faulty process, it becomes a Problem, and finding a solution to prevent future occurrences is essential.

Addressing these inefficiencies demands executive urgency. Leaders must act quickly to implement streamlined processes such as bulk editing, problem tagging, and intelligent incident workflows. These strategies not only save valuable time and resources, but they also ensure that teams focus on resolving the root causes, improving service quality, and preventing similar issues. Taking timely action leads to greater efficiency, stronger outcomes, and higher customer satisfaction.

Solution: The Power of Bulk Management with Care

Luigi Iacobellis created a great video introducing mass updates to records in ServiceNow, what to do and NOT to do!

Bulk editing and ticket tagging are essential for managing high-volume, low-impact incidents. When done right, bulk processing enables teams to quickly acknowledge, categorize, and close unnecessary tickets, freeing up resources for critical tasks. This approach:

• Streamlines workflows, improving overall productivity.
• Reduces frustration by prioritizing valid incidents.
• Accelerates resolutions, enhancing user satisfaction.

With bulk editing, applied carefully, incident managers can reduce manual workloads, avoid team burnout, and significantly improve outcomes. Implementing these strategies ensures operational control, even in the face of overwhelming incident surges.

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Best Practices for Managing Incident Surge Problems

1. Bulk Editing for Quick Action

When dealing with a large volume of incidents from an errant process, bulk editing is the fastest solution. Follow these steps:

• Tag Tickets to Problem Records: Always link incidents to a known problem for easy tracking.
• Bulk Acknowledgment: Use standardized messages to promptly notify users that their issue is under review.
• Bulk Closure: Once you’ve verified certain tickets don’t need action, close them all at once to quickly reduce the backlog and focus on the valid incidents needing resolution.

2. Tips and Traps:

Tips:

• Ensure non-critical incidents are truly low-impact before closing. Filters are key to separating valid tickets.
• Create a Problem ticket to analyze the cause, the approach and the recommendations.
• Attach a detailed log analysis of bulk closures for accountability and easy future audits.

Trap

• Avoid careless bulk closures may cause unresolved issues to resurface.
• Do not cancel the ticket, close it with the correct root cause. A ticket created due to an errant process still needs to be validated as errant and communicated appropriately.

3. Avoiding Escalation to Major Incident Status

If a valid issue impacts multiple users needing a fix to restore the solution or the service, consider escalating it to a major incident. However, bulk-close non-critical tickets that do not require a fix, so much as management due to being generated by errant processes, must be handled in a way that is clear and prevents unnecessary escalation. Be sure to clearly communicate with users about the validation and non-critical nature of their tickets to manage their expectations effectively.

Other Resources for Managing Incident Surge Problems

• 5 Best-practices for avoiding outages-caused-by-tls-certificates
• AI agents | LinkedIn Learning
• Archive and Destroy Table Maintenance Rules in ServiceNow
• Creating a proactive incident response plan | Microsoft Security Blog
• How to handle incidents involving multiple teams in incident response framework? (linkedin.com)
• How To Mass Update Records in ServiceNow (youtube.com)
• How to plan for major incidents in ITSM | Axelos
• Incident Management Principles – HDI (thinkhdi.com)
• Knowledge Management Pro Features (dawncsimmons.com)
• Learning Cyber Incident Response Overview | LinkedIn Learning
• Lessons Learned: CrowdStrike Incident (dawncsimmons.com)
• Predictive Intelligent Situational Awareness
• Problem closure tools and techniques (linkedin.com)
• Revolutionizing the Incident Management Practice (thinkhdi.com)