Postcard with Incident Communications tips from Jake Bartlett's workshop, "Creating an Incident Communications Plan." Presented at Support Driven Expo in Portland, Oregon, July 2019.

1. Made with #HugOps by the Statuspage Team
1. Communicate early Quickly
acknowledge the issue, briefly summarize
the known impact, promise further updates
and, if you’re able, alleviate any concerns about
security or data loss.
2. Communicate often Provide updates
every 30 minutes (or whatever cadence is
appropriate for the situation) to keep users out
of the dark until resolution.
3. Communicate precisely When it comes
to incident updates, honesty, clarity, and
transparency is key. Make sure to explain
the issue and how it impacts different
stakeholders in layman's terms.
4. Stay consistent across channels Make
sure you are delivering consistent (and
relevant) updates across all communication
channels you are using (Twitter, email,
Statuspage, etc.)
5. Say sorry If appropriate, write a
post-mortem to send to affected users.
Acknowledge the issue, empathize with those
affected, and apologize.
Top 5 Incident Communication Tips
Keep this card handy so you can nail incident comms the next time downtime strikes.