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Establish practice

Define cadence, owner, participation, and success signals for a recurring team practice.

Practice CharterweeklyOperating practice

Establish the practice

Define cadence, owner, participation, and success signals so the method works as a recurring team practice.

Derived automatically

Variant for Operating practice. The plan is derived from method form, method steps, and runsheet.

Runsheet
Cadence logic
Rhythm before scope

An operating practice works through repetition. The cadence should be small enough to hold reliably.

Iteration flow
One run, reusable each time

The steps describe one repetition and are adjusted after review.

  1. 1

    Phase 1: Timeline walkthrough

    20 min

    The facilitator reads the timeline aloud, participants fill gaps, correct timestamps, and mark decision points. No discussion of causes yet, only the factual basis.

    OwnerIf the team drifts into discussion in phase 1, the facilitator stops it and moves the point to phase 3. The timeline is the basis, not the verdict.
  2. 2

    Phase 2: Capture impact

    10 min

    Record user impact, business impact, and SLO breaches in numbers. Minimum: duration of the disruption, number of affected users, and estimated revenue or reputation effect.

    TeamNumbers need a source. If they are estimates, mark them as estimates. Impact drives the priority of action items.
  3. 3

    Phase 3: Contributing factors

    30 min

    Collect contributing factors by category: technology, process, organization, information. For each factor: what did the system do or not do, and what would have changed the outcome. Keep the language neutral.

    TeamThe facilitator interrupts personification and rewrites it. Instead of 'X forgot', use 'the process had no control point'.
  4. 4

    Phase 4: Action items

    20 min

    For each contributing factor, define 0-2 measures with owner, due date, and priority. Make action items small executable tickets, not programs. Separate detection measures clearly from cause measures.

    TeamIf all action items are 'better docs' or 'more training', the analysis is too shallow. At least one technical measure is needed per relevant factor.
  5. 5

    Phase 5: Lessons and sign-off

    10 min

    Formulate three lessons learned that other teams could benefit from. Clarify the publication format and the audience. Sign off by the Incident Commander and facilitator.

    TeamLessons belong in the cross-team learning channel, not only in the local wiki folder. If lessons stay local, the multiplier effect is lost.
Usable artifact

Practice Charter

Copyable charter with purpose, cadence, owner, participation, flow, success signals, and review.

practice-charter.md

Practice Charter: Blameless Postmortem

Purpose

The method helps clarify incident work, roles, and countermeasures concretely. It aligns incident picture, ownership, and next countermeasures. The outcome is captured as a postmortem document, action items, and timeline.

Cadence

weekly

Owner and Participation

  • Owner: open
  • Participants: 3-12
  • Mode: synchronous

Flow per Iteration

  1. Phase 1: Timeline walkthrough (20 min) The facilitator reads the timeline aloud, participants fill gaps, correct timestamps, and mark decision points. No discussion of causes yet, only the factual basis.
  2. Phase 2: Capture impact (10 min) Record user impact, business impact, and SLO breaches in numbers. Minimum: duration of the disruption, number of affected users, and estimated revenue or reputation effect.
  3. Phase 3: Contributing factors (30 min) Collect contributing factors by category: technology, process, organization, information. For each factor: what did the system do or not do, and what would have changed the outcome. Keep the language neutral.
  4. Phase 4: Action items (20 min) For each contributing factor, define 0-2 measures with owner, due date, and priority. Make action items small executable tickets, not programs. Separate detection measures clearly from cause measures.
  5. Phase 5: Lessons and sign-off (10 min) Formulate three lessons learned that other teams could benefit from. Clarify the publication format and the audience. Sign off by the Incident Commander and facilitator.

Success Signals

Postmortem Doc, Action Items, Timeline

Review

4 weeks