Incident comms cadence: a pragmatic schedule
Comms should be predictable. A clear cadence reduces anxiety and protects the incident lead’s focus.
A practical cadence
- First update within 10 minutes of declaring the incident.
- Every 20-30 minutes while impact is unresolved.
- Immediate update after major changes (rollback, feature flag, escalation).
- Final update when impact is resolved and next steps are clear.
Cadence line (simple visual)
T+0 Incident declared
T+10 First update
T+30 Update
T+60 Update
Event-driven updates after major changes
Keep every update short
Use the same four lines each time:
- What we see
- What we tried
- What we’ll try next
- When the next update is coming
Post in one place (status page, incident channel, or email thread). Scattered updates create more questions.
Assign a comms lead
If the incident lead writes updates, they will stop diagnosing. Assign a comms owner on day one.
Cadence beats volume. Predictable updates are the fastest way to build trust.