The ChecklistFor an average incident, there are quite a few steps to managing an incident and much of it is typically handled on an ad-hoc basis by a human. Let’s enumerate them:Declare an Incident — There are many different entry points to a potential incident: automated alerts, an internal notification, or an external notification.Determine Incident Commander — Determining the sole individual responsible for driving a particular incident to resolution based on the incident source, type, and priority.Create Communication Channels — Communication during incidents is key. Establishing dedicated and standardized channels for communication prevents the creation of communication silos.Create Incident Document — The central document responsible for containing up-to-date incident information, including a description of the incident, links to resources, rough notes from in-person meetings, open questions, action items, and timeline information.Engage Individual Resources — An incident commander will not be able to resolve an incident by themselves, they must identify and engage additional resources within the organization to help them.Orient Individual Resources — Engaging additional resources is not enough, the Incident Commander needs to orient these resources to the situation at hand.Notify Key Stakeholders — For any given incident, key stakeholders not directly involved in resolving the incident need to be made aware of the incident.Drive Incident to Resolution — The actual resolution of the incident, creating tasks, asking questions, and tracking answers. Making note of key learnings to be addressed after resolution.Perform Post Incident Review (PIR) — Review how the incident process was performed, tracking actions to be performed after the incident, and driving learning through structuring informal knowledge.
Source: Introducing Dispatch – Netflix TechBlog