Initial Steps for IT Incident Visualization: Understanding Leadership Needs, Design, and Evaluation

In today´s technology dependent world, business leaders within organizations must address information technology (IT) incident response needs. Yet, piecemeal and inadequate incident response tools frequently stymie their engagement. This paper discusses a user-centered approach undertaken to design, develop and evaluate an initial leader-centric IT incident response visualization that would facilitate effective and timely self-directed awareness. Two distinct groups of IT professionals were enlisted in this study. The methodology resulted in an initial development and evaluation of a visualization prototype. The paper introduces management of declared IT incidents as a viable problem domain for visualization. Second, the paper presents the types of information sources for effective IT incident response. Lastly, the paper proposes that leaders would welcome a visualization mechanism that facilitates their ability to observe, understand, synthesize and to adjust real-time actions based on their comprehension.