Nobody likes fire drills.
They interrupt your day, make loud noises, and force you to stand outside wondering whether you locked your laptop.
And yet—when a real fire happens—you’re very glad someone practiced them.
Incidents in IT work the same way.
The Moment the Alarm Goes Off
You’re working on something completely unrelated when suddenly:
- Slack lights up 🔔
- Someone types “Is prod down?”
- Another message follows: “Seeing errors in checkout”
- Your heart rate triples
That feeling?
That’s not failure. That’s the drill starting.
An incident is simply the moment your system says:
“Hey, something unexpected is happening. Let’s switch to practiced behavior.”
Incidents Are Not Chaos — They’re Rehearsed Chaos
In a fire drill, nobody debates whether to leave the building.
- You don’t ask who caused the fire
- You don’t redesign the building mid-evacuation
- You don’t argue about whose fault it is
You just:
- Follow the plan
- Communicate clearly
- Get people safe
Incident response works the same way.
The goal is not:
- Finding the root cause
- Writing a perfect fix
- Being clever
The goal is:
Stabilize first. Think later.
Why Slack Explodes (and Why That’s Okay)
Slack feels chaotic during incidents because it’s the hallway during a fire drill.
People shout:
- “I see smoke here!”
- “This exit is blocked!”
- “We’re back up—wait, no, not yet.”
That’s normal.
The problem isn’t noise.
The problem is unstructured noise.
Good incident response adds structure:
- One incident channel
- One incident lead
- Clear status updates
Just like a fire marshal with a whistle.
The Incident Lead Is Not the Firefighter
A common misunderstanding:
“The incident lead must be the smartest engineer.”
Nope.
The incident lead is the person who:
- Keeps track of what’s happening
- Decides what happens next
- Makes sure someone is always steering
They don’t have to fix the fire.
They make sure nobody runs in circles.
Incidents Feel Scarier Than They Are
Fire drills feel dramatic because:
- They’re loud
- They’re urgent
- They interrupt normal life
Incidents feel dramatic for the same reasons.
But here’s the reframing that matters:
An incident means your system is doing what it was designed to do:
signal trouble early.
Silence is scarier than alerts.
What This Means in Real Life
If you remember nothing else, remember this:
- An incident is not a failure
- Panic is a signal that structure is missing
- Calm comes from shared expectations, not heroics
Incidents don’t mean you’re bad at your job.
They mean you’re awake.
And like any good fire drill—you’ll get better at them the more you practice.
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