Template
Incident postmortem template
What happened, why, and what changes so it does not happen again — without blaming anybody.
The agenda, with a time for each part
- What happened, minute by minute12 min
- What did each person see, and when?
- How we found out6 min
- Did we notice, or did a customer tell us?
- How long between it starting and us knowing?
- What made it worse or better10 min
- What slowed the fix down?
- What went right that we should keep?
- Why it was possible14 min
- What made that the sensible thing to do at the time?
- What would have had to be true for this not to happen?
- What we will change12 min
- Which change would have prevented it, and which would only have shortened it?
- Who owns each change6 min
- Who, and by what date?
How the notes read afterwards
A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.
What happened. Sign-in failed for 41 minutes from 14:02 after a config change.
How we found out. A customer wrote in at 14:09; the alert fired at 14:20.
Change. Config changes go to one region first and wait ten minutes. Noah, by Friday.
Running it well
- Ask “what made that the sensible thing to do at the time?” rather than “why did you do that?”.
- Write the timeline before the meeting, from logs and messages, so the hour is spent on why.
Ways to change it
When to skip it. When the same incident already has a change in progress. Add this one to that list instead of holding the meeting again.
Questions
What is a blameless postmortem?
A review of something that went wrong that asks how the system let it happen, instead of who made the mistake. People tell the truth when they are not being judged.
When should a postmortem be held?
Within a week, while people still remember — and after the incident is fully over.
What happens in the room
Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.
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