Is it just me or do you think that organizations create new acronyms, catch phrases, and buzz words just to confuse the rest of us?  I mean how many different management solutions can we possibly have to run our organization?  Recently I came across two blurbs on the same page one about risk management and the other incident management; I was baffled they were utterly indistinguishable!  Anyone could have switched the titles and probably 90% of the people reading the pages would never have known. 

Definitions from Wikipedia:

Risk Management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events.

Incident Management (IcM) refers to the activities of an organization to identify, analyze and correct hazards. For instance, a fire in a factory would be a risk that realized, or an incident that happened. An Incident Report Team (IRT) or an Incident Management Team (IMT) specifically designated for the task beforehand or on the spot, would then manage the organization through the incident.

Ok there are some subtle differences but it still sounds very similar. Through a bit more research and a few phone calls I was able to start drawing a few lines in the sand but not very cleanly.  Often Incident management would be related to very specific divisional issues such as information technology (IT) or human resources (HR) while risk management would often be looked at more globally and holistically over an entire organization.  The terms probably mean something different to everyone but next time you hear someone mention risk or incident management ask them to explain the difference and see what they say.