---
# System prepended metadata

title: Postmortem/Retrospective

---

# Postmortem/Retrospective

(adapted from Amazon Web Services)

## Mission and Tenets

Mission: Improve the overall quality of our systems by documenting events to identify root causes and address them through trackable action items. 

 * The postmortem process should always be seen as an opportunity to learn and improve, not blame or punish.
 * We want cumulative organizational data and lesson sharing to limit fallout from similar events in the future, or better still, prevent them entirely.


## The Document Template

 * [Summary] (<= 3 paragraphs)
 * [Metrics/Graphs] (>=1 graphs/tables illustrating impact of event)
 * [User Impact]: (1-2 paragraph summary of user-facing impact/experience during the event)
 * [Incident Response] (Detection/Mitigation/Diagnosis/Resolution): Four questions (see below).
 * [Timeline]: Explain how incident was managed. Include *event* start and end times, not just team's perception of event.
 * [Five Whys][] ([wikipedia][Five Whys wikipedia]): dig down until *root cause* is identified
 * [Lessons Learned], [Corrective Actions], [Action Items]: The [Five Whys] yield lessons, and lessons yield actions.

[Summary]: #Summary
[Metrics/Graphs]: #Metrics/Graphs
[User Impact]: #User-Impact
[Incident Response]: #Incident-Response
[Timeline]: #Timeline
[Five Whys]: #Five-Whys
[Lessons Learned]: #Lessons-Learned
[Corrective Actions]: #Corrective-Actions
[Action Items]: #Action-Items

[Five Whys wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys


# Title Here

## Summary

(<= 3 paragraphs)

## Metrics/Graphs

(>=1 graphs/tables illustrating impact of event)

(embedded mermaid is nice, but links to images is also fine)

```mermaid
gantt
   title Timeline of Issue Arrival
	dateFormat  YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm
	(start point): 2021-05-06 11:58, 1h
	fallout event 1 : 2021-05-06 15:08, 1h
	discussion (detection point): 2021-05-06 15:11, 1d
	fallout event 2 : 2021-05-07 16:02, 1h
	fix deployed (mitigation point) : 2021-05-08 10:00, 1h
```

## User Impact

(1-2 paragraph summary of user-facing impact/experience during the event)

## Incident Response

(Note: See terminology [cheat sheet](#Incident-Response-Cheat-Sheet) below the four Q&A's)

(Detection/Mitigation/Diagnosis/Resolution: Four questions, see below.)

* Question: How was the event detected (e.g. an alarm? manual?)
	* [ ] Answer here

* Question: How could time to detection be improved? As a thought exercise, how would you have cut the time in half?
	* [ ] Answer here

* Question: How did you reach the point where you knew how to mitigate the impact (here called the "decision point")?
	* [ ] Answer here

* Question: How could time to mitigation be improved? As a thought exercise, how would you have cut the time in half?
	* [ ] Answer here

### Incident Response Cheat Sheet

[Term](https://greatcircle.com/blog/2018/04/24/how-to-improve-your-incident-response-times/) | Definition
-----------|------
Start Time | when your users first started being impacted
Detection Time | when the team came to know there was impact.
Response Time | when a person first started actively working on the problem (not merely acknowledged it)
Mitigation Time | when the problem was resolved from the user’s point of view
Resolution Time | when the incident response is “finished” from the responder’s point of view


## Timeline

(Explain how incident was managed. Include *event* start and end times, not just team's perception of event.)
 
 Timestamp     (Time Zone here)  | Event
 --------------------| -----
 2021-05-05 22:09    | event description
 2021-05-06 11:48    | event description

## Five Whys

([wikipedia][Five Whys wikipedia]; dig down until *root cause* is identified)

* [ ] Q: Why did event happen
  * [ ] A: because of action X
* [ ] Q: Why did action X happen
  * [ ] A: because of constraint Y
* [ ] Q: Why was Y a constraint
  * [ ] A: because of root cause Z ==> Lesson Learned.

## Lessons Learned, Corrective Actions, Action Items

The [Five Whys] yield lessons, and lessons yield actions.

 * Each chain of [Five Whys] should yield at least one lesson learned. Each lesson learned should yield at least one corrective action. Each corrective action should yield at least one action item.
 * Corrective Actions are high level activities to address the problem, while Action Items are individual tasks that can be assigned due dates.

### Lessons Learned

 * [ ] Lesson 1
 * [ ] Lesson 2

### Corrective Actions

(link back to lessons)

 * [ ] Action 1a
 * [ ] Action 1b
 * [ ] Action 2a

### Action Item

(link back to actions, and include near term deadlines)

 * [ ] Action Item
 * [ ] Action Item
