IT Incident Reporting

From ListsWiki

The uptime, reliability, performance, scalability, performance and security of commercial Web sites is of paramount importance. When sites have issues, you should give your time and energy to resolution. You should spend considerable time on proactive measures.

Experience has taught that things can and sometimes do go wrong. Sometimes calculated risks don’t pan out. Sometimes mistakes cause problems. We are human. We should strive for perfection; we can get close to it, but not fully attain it. We should be prepared for such scenarios. When they happen, we should work diligently and expeditiously on resolution and have frequent and honest communications with stakeholders and customers. These checklists are to aid with communications related to such incidents.

Stakeholders and customers here refer to internal customers of the technology operations team (e.g. the concerned folks in editorial, marketing, sales, finance, legal and other departments). External communications to the public Internet should be handled in consultation with legal and public relations.

[edit] During-Incident Communication Checklist

• Current status
• What is the full impact?
• Estimated time to resolution
• Any recommended workarounds until resolution, if practical
• Assurance that it is being worked on
  • It often helps to mention who all are working on it and what they are doing

[edit] Post-Incident Communication Checklist

• Summary
• What happened, how and why it happened?
  • Including full description of all impact
  • Do not blame2 third-parties or say things like “beyond our control”. A technology leader takes responsibility equally for both insourced and outsourced products and services.3
• How it was resolved
  • If the resolution is temporary or long-term
• Next steps
• Plan for eliminating or minimizing this and similar incidents from happening again
• Thank all those who helped resolve and the customers for their understanding
• Mention the monetary credits you plan to give as per the Service Level Agreement (SLA)
  • Specify any additional ‘make goods’ or returns you plan to make to the customers above and beyond the credits as per SLA, if appropriate.