What is the difference between incident management and problem management?

• A. Incident management deals with budget issues; problem management handles training.
• B. Incident management investigates root causes; problem management restores service quickly.
• C. Incident management restores service quickly; problem management investigates root causes to prevent recurrence.
• D. Both processes are identical in scope and goals.

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is the distinct focus of two IT service management activities: getting services back up quickly versus figuring out why the disruption happened and preventing it from recurring. Incident management is all about restoring service fast after an outage, using workarounds or quick fixes to minimize downtime and impact. Problem management goes deeper to identify the root cause of the incident, analyze patterns, and implement permanent solutions to prevent future occurrences. The best description aligns with incident management restoring service quickly and problem management investigating root causes to prevent recurrence. Some options mix up these roles or claim the processes are identical, which isn’t accurate because the short-term recovery goal is different from the long-term prevention goal.