On-callMediumoc-p070

Subject Postmortem judgmentLevel Senior–Staff~20 minCommon in Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Technology, Software development

Question

Reviewing recent incidents, you notice postmortem action items repeatedly don't get completed, and the same kinds of incidents recur. How do you fix the process?

What a strong answer looks like

Stop the bleeding first (mitigate), then form hypotheses from real signals. Separate root cause from symptom, communicate status as you go, and close with what prevents a repeat.

Learn the concepts

Diagram & narrate the incident

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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.