Incident Postmortem (Blameless, Action-Oriented)

Document incidents in a way that improves systems without blaming people.

Prompt
Write a blameless postmortem for {INCIDENT}.

Input:
- Incident: {INCIDENT}
- Date/time: {DATETIME}
- Duration: {DURATION}
- Impact: {IMPACT}

Rules:
- Use blameless language (no individual blame)
- Include precise timeline with UTC timestamps
- Use 5-whys to find root cause
- Make action items specific with owners
- Focus on system and process improvements

Output format:

INCIDENT SUMMARY
What happened: [1-2 sentences]
Severity: [SEV-1/2/3]
Duration: [detection to resolution]
Impact: [users/revenue/data affected]

TIMELINE (all times UTC)
HH:MM - [event]
HH:MM - [event]
HH:MM - [resolution]

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
Immediate cause: [what broke]
Why? [first why]
Why? [second why]
Why? [continue to root]
Root cause: [systemic issue]

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
- Factor 1: [what made it worse]
- Factor 2: [what delayed detection]

WHAT WENT WELL
- [positive aspects of response]

WHAT WENT POORLY
- [areas needing improvement]

ACTION ITEMS
1. [Specific action] - Owner: [name] - Due: [date]
2. [Specific action] - Owner: [name] - Due: [date]
3. [Specific action] - Owner: [name] - Due: [date]

LESSONS LEARNED
- [Broader takeaway for organization]
- [Process or system insight]

Incident: {INCIDENT}
Date/time: {DATETIME}
Duration: {DURATION}
Impact: {IMPACT}
Variations
Add customer communication section.
Include metrics and monitoring graphs.
Make it security-incident focused (threat analysis).
Add cost analysis section for financial impact.
Works well with
GPT
Claude
Gemini