A small ritual for the on-call handoff.
Five minutes, four questions, one rule. The simplest piece of process I've ever introduced and somehow the one I'm most quietly proud of.
I think the smallest and most useful piece of process I have ever introduced is a five-minute ritual at the start of every on-call handoff. It is so simple I am embarrassed to write it down. It has, over four years, prevented at least six incidents that I can name and probably twice that many I can’t.
The four questions
- What woke you up? The literal page text, plus what you did about it.
- What’s smoldering? The thing you didn’t page on but probably should have.
- What’s deploying? Anything risky going out in the next 12 hours.
- What do I need to watch? Specific dashboards, specific times, specific suspicions.
The rule
Whatever the outgoing on-call says, the incoming on-call writes down. In a place that survives the conversation. In a place that survives the conversation. It is amazing how often the answer to “didn’t you know about X?” is “I was told but never wrote it down.”
That’s the whole ritual. Five minutes. It is the kindest thing I have done for the team.