Blameless incident debrief
After an incident: how the response felt from the inside, so the review can fix the system, not the people.
Worth a look
- Build a tower, build a teamTom Wujec, TEDThe marshmallow challenge: why kindergartners beat business-school graduates at building something together. (opens in a new tab)
- Forget the pecking order at workMargaret Heffernan, TEDThe superchicken experiment, and why a team of stars loses to a team that helps each other. (opens in a new tab)
- How Google builds the perfect teamInsider TechCharles Duhigg on what Google found when it studied its own teams: who's on the team mattered less than how they treat each other. (opens in a new tab)
- How to turn a group of strangers into a teamAmy Edmondson, TEDHow the Chilean mine rescue worked with people who had never worked together, and what any new project team can borrow from it. (opens in a new tab)
- How to build a company where the best ideas winRay Dalio, TEDRadical transparency at Bridgewater: recorded meetings and everyone rating everyone's thinking in real time. Fascinating whether or not you'd want it. (opens in a new tab)
More (2)
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick LencioniPatrick LencioniThe author walks through his pyramid, from no trust to nobody owning results. You'll know which layer your team is stuck on. (opens in a new tab)
- Postmortem Culture: Learning from FailureGoogle SRE bookHow Google writes up what went wrong without hunting for someone to blame, so people tell the truth next time. (opens in a new tab)
The conviction read: the timeline says what happened; it cannot say how sure people felt while it did. A wide spread on 'knew what my part in the response was' points to a gap in roles that a tidy write-up smooths over.
What's in the template
- I knew what my part in the response was. puck
- The right people were pulled in early enough. puck
- Updates during the incident were clear. puck
- I had the access I needed to help. puck
- I can describe my own part openly in the review. puck
- I trust we will find and fix the real cause. puck
Questions about this template
When is the right time to send it?
Once the incident is closed and before the review meeting, so the meeting can start from how the response felt to everyone rather than from whoever speaks first.
Who should answer it?
Everyone who took part in the response, including people who only joined for part of it. Their view of how clear the updates were is often the one the timeline leaves out.