When critical incidents happen — which they inevitably do 😅 — and you’re in the middle of trying to figure out what the best thing to do is, it can feel comforting to know that you’ve got a pre-prepared list of instructions to follow, commonly known as an “incident response plan”: In theory this sounds quite simple, and a typical flow you might envision is: It might be tempting to think that the hardest part of running incidents is finding or writing a checkl

As a solutions engineer for FireHydrant, I speak with a wide variety of companies about their incident management programs — from start-ups with a handful of employees to large enterprise companies with thousands of engineers. Whether they’re looking to establish their incident management program or mature it, the same questions remain.

Resolving the incident is only half the battle when it comes to responding to incidents. For many teams, incident communication is an afterthought, leaving stakeholders inside and outside the organization guessing what happened. But ensuring that important information about the incident is disseminated clearly and quickly is essential.

At Blameless, the world’s leading software engineering teams rely on us during incident management. A key part of our offering is the ability to seamlessly integrate with a customer’s unique tech stack. As such, we value partnerships with companies like Microsoft that enhance our user experience and meet the needs of our customers. We understand how essential it is to integrate with communication tools like Microsoft Teams, because it’s the first place a user goes to start an incident.

World-class incident responders are a strategic asset in today’s world where the frequency and sophistication of cyber security attacks continue to increase every year, as do the associated financial damages: As such, more and more organizations are looking to grow their cyber incident response expertise, both with inhouse staff as well as by engaging with third-party experts.

At incident.io, we empower teams to run incidents quickly and effectively from start to finish. One of the ways we help is by taking the manual admin out of your incidents. More often than not, folks are spending too much time thinking about the process, when the time would be better spent focusing on fixing. Our automated workflows, nudges and prompts help to embed best practices and unlock time for more impactful work.

Deep into an incident, Slack firing, up to your ears in decisions, not sure where to turn next? It’s easy for external communication with your customers to fall far down the list of priorities in these moments. However, these are the exact situations where comms are vital, and where underestimating their importance can having damaging and lasting effects on your organisation.