The perfect incident management checklist doesn’t need to be a fantasy. In fact, it shouldn’t be! The perfect incident management checklist should cover several topics, be broken down into bite-size sections, and help team members quickly identify tasks that fall under their responsibility. We asked our experts what should be included in the perfect incident management checklist. Here are their answers.
In IT environments, incidents happen all the time and it's impossible to prevent all of them. Regardless of the available software solutions or the level of technical training of both users and developers, no organization is immune to incidents. The increased dependence on IT infrastructure to provide core services means that any disruption in IT services can cause any organization significant financial and reputational harm. For example, IT service providers need to resolve customer support tickets following the service-level agreements (SLAs), and failing to do so makes them liable for breaching such agreements.
As business systems grow to encompass more locations, tools, and organizations, defining processes that keep pace with these changes can’t be left to a hodgepodge of disconnected programs—or worse, manual implementation of paper documentation. You need to automate. Automation within businesses first arose in the 1960s, alongside resource planning systems.
Cloud services have skyrocketed in popularity in the past few years, providing a vast array of resources as well as a cost-effective path for the migration from on-premises servers to the cloud. In fact, cloud services are handling all the computing needs of many businesses. It’s very likely you’re already using cloud services and will continue to use more as time goes on.
When an incident inevitably occurs, many organizations have a well-prepared incident management team that springs into action. Whether it’s a power outage or security breach, an incident can damage your company’s operations if not handled properly. A strong incident response team is critical to mitigating any negative impacts successfully. Furthermore, once your team resolves the problem, you should initiate a postmortem to detail the incident and record any lessons learned.
Imagine being part of an overactive group chat that causes your phone to buzz every few minutes. In the beginning, you open every message but soon realize that most of them aren't important-or at least are not relevant to you. So, what do you do next? Maybe you let the messages pile up and check them later. Or perhaps, you mute the group chat and ignore the incoming messages altogether. You can blame this tendency to ignore or avoid incoming messages or notifications on one culprit: alert fatigue.
Reliability and chaos might seem like opposite ideas. But, as Netflix learned in 2010, introducing a bit of chaos—and carefully measuring the results of that chaos—can be a great recipe for reliability. Although most software is created in a tightly controlled environment and carefully tested before release, the production environment is harsher and much less controlled.
We’re constantly looking for new ways to help DevOps, SREs, and operations teams automate operations workflows, secure infrastructure and applications, and rapidly deliver their products at scale. This commitment to our customers — and yours! — led us to redesign the way you experience groups in xMatters.
Everbridge’s xMatters Digital Service Availability Platform is Improving Animal Rescue Response Times through WIRES in Australia.
Leadership is essential in an organization. Establishing a leadership hierarchy helps teams avoid getting confused about who to turn to with questions and concerns, allowing them to focus their efforts where needed. High-quality leadership is vital to success but becomes even more important when the pressure to resolve an issue with minimal downtime is turned up.
