Severity
GlossaryWritten by Burak YReviewed by Burak YLast reviewed 3 September 2026
A classification of incident impact and urgency used to guide response and communication. Severity is useful only when each level maps to a different action — who is woken, who is told, how often updates go out. Levels that change nothing except a label produce debates during incidents instead of decisions.
In practice
A team's severity scale states that its highest level requires a customer-facing update within thirty minutes. That obligation, not the number, is what makes the classification worth arguing about.