Template

On-call handover template

The fifteen minutes when one engineer hands the pager to the next: what broke, what is still open, and what to watch this week.

15 minutesFor The outgoing and incoming on-call engineers, and their team leadAgenda room

Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

What happened this week5 min
- Which alerts fired, and which were real?
What is still open4 min
- What is half-fixed, and where are the notes?
What to watch3 min
- What looks shaky, and what would tell you it is getting worse?
Changes going out3 min
- What is being released this week that might page you?

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.

This week. Eleven alerts; two real (both disk space on the search servers).

Open. The search disk is at 78%; cleaning up is planned for Wednesday.

Watch. Login errors rose slightly after Friday's release.

Going out. A payments change on Thursday; Ana is the contact.

Running it well

Write the handover note first and talk through only what is not obvious from it. The note is what the next person reads at 3am.
Name the noisy alerts and decide on the spot whether to fix or delete them. An alert that fires every night and means nothing trains people to ignore the real one.
Make sure the incoming person can actually get in — access, passwords, the phone number — before the outgoing person leaves.

Ways to change it

Written onlyFor quiet weeks, a note in the team channel is enough, with a call only if something is open.

Follow the sunHand over at the end of each region's day, with the same four headings.

When to skip it. Never skip the note; skip the call only if nothing happened and nothing is open.

Questions

What is an on-call handover?

A short meeting or note when on-call duty passes from one engineer to the next, covering incidents, open issues, things to watch and upcoming changes.

What should an on-call handover note include?

Alerts and incidents from the shift, anything unresolved and where it stands, risks to watch, scheduled changes, and who to contact.

How long should an on-call handover take?

About fifteen minutes, if the written note is done first.

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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