Post-Incident Review Templates: 3 Real-World Examples (Make Copy)

A few months ago, an engineering manager told us something that stuck: > "We write these postmortems like college essays. Then we never open them again." He wasn't wrong. We've seen the same pattern across dozens of teams. Someone spends two days crafting a 5-page Google Doc. Everyone nods during the review meeting. Then the doc gets filed away, never to be seen again, and six months later the same incident happens. That's theater. It looks like learning, but nothing actually changes. After interviewing 25+ engineering teams about how they handle incidents, we found a clear pattern: the teams that actually learn from incidents do things differently. Not more process. Simpler process that people actually use. Here is what works, plus three postmortem templates you can copy and use right now. We call these post-incident reviews (PIRs), also known as postmortems. This is based on what teams told us actually gets used, not what sounds good in a doc. --- ## What Is a Post-Incident Review (Postmortem)? A [post-incident review](/learn/post-incident-review) (also called a postmortem or **incident retrospective**) is a structured process for analyzing what happened during a production incident, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again. The goal isn't to assign blame—it's to learn from failures and improve systems. Key components of an effective post-incident review: - **Timeline** - What happened and when - **Root cause** - Why it happened (system-level, not person-level). See: [root cause analysis](/learn/root-cause-analysis) - **Impact assessment** - Who was affected and how - **Action items** - Specific steps to prevent recurrence - **Shared learning** - Documentation others can reference Done right, post-incident reviews turn incidents from costly failures into valuable learning opportunities for the entire team. --- ## Post-Incident Review Approaches Compared <table> <caption>Post-incident review approaches compared by time investment, team size fit, and when they fail</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>Approach</th> <th>Time Investment</th> <th>Works For</th> <th>Breaks When</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>No postmortem</td> <td>0 minutes</td> <td>Never</td> <td>Immediately - same incidents repeat</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Verbal debrief only</td> <td>15 minutes</td> <td><10 people, low stakes</td> <td>Nothing documented, learning lost</td> </tr> <tr> <td>5+ page document</td> <td>2+ hours</td> <td>Compliance requirements</td> <td>Nobody reads it, action items ignored</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>1-page template (our approach)</strong></td> <td><strong>30-45 minutes</strong></td> <td><strong>Most teams 10-100 people</strong></td> <td><strong>Blame culture or no follow-through</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Enterprise RCA tools</td> <td>3+ hours</td> <td>200+ people, formal processes</td> <td>Overkill for smaller teams</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> --- ## What Most Teams Get Wrong Let's start with what doesn't work. If you've been through a few incidents, this will feel familiar: **The 5-page document problem** Teams write lengthy postmortems covering every possible angle: timeline, root cause analysis using five different frameworks, customer impact graphs, process flow diagrams, action items spread across three different sections, and a "lessons learned" section that's basically generic filler. Nobody reads this. People who weren't in the incident won't read it. People who were in the incident already lived it, and they don't need a novel. **The blame problem** Even when teams say "no blame," the postmortem often reads like "what Sarah did wrong" or "how the database team broke production again." This is the opposite of a [blameless postmortem](/learn/blameless-postmortem) culture where teams focus on systems, not people. A Series B infrastructure team showed us a doc where every action item was assigned to a person, not a system. That killed the tone. The next time something broke, people waited until someone else spoke up first. **The timing problem** Some teams wait two weeks to do postmortems. By then, details are fuzzy. The urgency is gone. The emotional impact has faded. Action items feel optional. **The action item graveyard** We've seen so many postmortems with 15 action items, zero of which ever get done. There's no owner. There's no deadline. There's no follow-up. They're wishful thinking, not actual commitments. --- ## What Actually Works (Based on 25+ Team Interviews) The teams that actually learn from incidents keep it simple and repeatable. Here's the pattern we keep seeing: 1. **Keep it short: one page max** The best postmortems we saw fit on one page. Sometimes less. A timeline, a root cause, and a few action items. Done. A staff engineer at a 50-person fintech startup put it this way: "If we can't read it in five minutes, we're not reading it." 2. **Do it within 48 hours** The fresher the incident, the better the postmortem. Details are still clear. Emotions are still raw enough that people care. Two weeks later, the writeup gets vague. We heard this from a 20-person infrastructure team: "We kept pushing it out, then nobody wanted to reopen it." 3. **Focus on systems, not people** Instead of "Sarah forgot to update the config," write "The deployment process doesn't validate config files." The fix isn't "Sarah should be more careful"; it's "add config validation to the deployment pipeline." This is the heart of a **blameless postmortem** culture. 4. **Action items with owners and deadlines** Every action item needs a specific owner (not "the team"), a deadline (not "soon"), and a definition of done (not "investigate further"). A postmortem from a 40-person devops team had a single action item: "Add config validation to deployment pipeline." Owner: Maria. Due: Friday. Done. And guess what, it got done. Aim for 1 to 3 action items per incident. 5. **Share the learning** Postmortems shouldn't live in a Google Doc graveyard. Share them in Slack. Post them in a visible place. Make sure people who weren't in the incident still learn from it. This **incident documentation** becomes your team's knowledge base. A Series B payments company keeps a single "#postmortems" Slack channel and links every doc there. That's enough. A 15-person backend team at a developer tools startup told us: "We ship the fix fast, but if the postmortem isn't linked in the incident channel by end of day, it never happens." That simple rule made the habit stick. --- ## Three Postmortem Templates You Can Use Here are three **downloadable** post-incident review templates, from ultra-short to comprehensive. Copy whichever fits your team. We've used these with real teams and they work. If you just need an **editable postmortem template** to copy and paste, start with Template 2. **Download the templates:** - [15-Minute Postmortem Template (Download, Editable)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YUYJjwKeXWXYQyuDtPOiThHSJt-Lj4dfPuyf1NHmz3k/copy) - [Standard Postmortem Template (Download, Editable)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OJO2oMVDBLTeKOml1ZlnHb_0MgTUkKEmbhVIHG2VQoE/copy) - [Comprehensive Postmortem Template (Download, Editable)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FVmuhp5ZBlhFHk4kLatfX8F7tmrsWmilpPY-V94iCWI/copy) --- ### Template 1: The 15-Minute Version For small incidents that don't warrant a full meeting. Fill it out in the incident channel or a shared doc. **What you'll capture:** - Incident summary (one sentence) - Impact (who, how long) - Root cause - One thing that went well - One thing to improve - One action item **Time to complete:** 15 minutes max [**Copy the 15-Minute Template →**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YUYJjwKeXWXYQyuDtPOiThHSJt-Lj4dfPuyf1NHmz3k/copy) --- ### Template 2: The Standard Version For most incidents. Detailed enough to be useful, short enough to actually complete. **What you'll capture:** - Incident details (severity, duration, impact) - Timeline (5 key moments) - Root cause analysis - What went well + what to improve - Action items with owners, deadlines, and status tracking - Follow-up tracking **Time to complete:** 30-45 minutes [**Copy the Standard Template →**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OJO2oMVDBLTeKOml1ZlnHb_0MgTUkKEmbhVIHG2VQoE/copy) --- ### Template 3: The Comprehensive Version For major incidents (SEV0/SEV1s, customer-facing outages) that warrant a formal review. **What you'll capture:** - Full impact analysis (systems, customers, business, detection) - Detailed timeline with who was involved - Root cause analysis (immediate, contributing, systemic) - Customer communication breakdown - Action items with definition of done - Prevention checklist (alerts, runbooks, deploys, resilience, testing) - Optional SOC 2 / Compliance addendum **Time to complete:** 60-90 minutes [**Copy the Comprehensive Template →**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FVmuhp5ZBlhFHk4kLatfX8F7tmrsWmilpPY-V94iCWI/copy) --- ## When Post-Incident Review Templates Won't Work These templates are built for 10-100 person teams who want to move fast. If that's not you, here's what to consider: **Heavily regulated companies** (SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAM): Template 3 includes a SOC 2 / Compliance addendum with incident classification, data impact, control mapping, and evidence links. If you need more than that, you likely have formal compliance requirements beyond these templates. **Large organizations** (200+ people, multiple teams): You likely have formal incident processes, change approval boards, and executive reporting requirements. A one-pager won't cover your stakeholders. Use these as a starting point, but expect to expand. **Blame cultures**: If your organization uses postmortems to assign fault, these templates will backfire. They're designed for systems-focused, blameless analysis. Fix the culture first, then fix the documentation. Everything else? Start with Template 2. --- ## How to Actually Make These Stick Templates are easy. Consistency is hard. Here's what the teams that stick with it actually do: 1. **Schedule the postmortem immediately** Don't wait. Schedule it within 48 hours while the context is fresh. Put it on the calendar as soon as the incident is stable. 2. **Keep the meeting under 30 minutes** If you can't cover it in 30 minutes, your postmortem is too long or the incident was too complex. Break complex incidents into smaller pieces. 3. **Assign an owner** Someone needs to own the postmortem process. Not the [incident commander](/learn/incident-commander); they're tired. Pick someone else who can gather info, draft the template, and make sure action items get tracked. A 25-person platform team rotates this responsibility weekly so it never becomes \"that one person's job.\"\n 4. **Track action items to completion** The teams that actually learn from incidents don't just list action items; they track them. Effective **action item tracking** means someone checks: "Did we actually do what we said we'd do?" A 30-person infrastructure team uses a spreadsheet. A Series C SaaS company uses their issue tracker. What matters is that someone is verifying completion. 5. **Share the learning** Post the postmortem in a visible place. Slack, a shared drive, or your internal wiki all work. Make sure people who weren't in the incident can still learn from it. A healthcare startup with 12 engineers has a "#postmortems" Slack channel where every postmortem gets posted. Anyone can read them. Anyone can learn from them. It's simple. It works. --- ## Post-Incident Review FAQs **How long should a post-incident review be?** As short as possible while still being useful. The best ones we've seen are one page. If you're writing five pages, you're probably overthinking it. **Who should run the postmortem?** Not the incident commander; they're usually tired of thinking about the incident. Pick someone else who was involved but not in the thick of it. Or rotate this responsibility across the team. **What if we don't know the root cause?** It happens. Write "Unknown; need to investigate" as the root cause and make that an action item. Honesty is better than guessing in your **root cause analysis**. **What if the same thing happens again?** That's a signal that your action items aren't working. Either they're not specific enough, there's no follow-through, or you're not addressing the systemic issue. Go back to the postmortem and ask: "Why did our fix not fix this?" **Do we need a meeting for every postmortem?** No. Small incidents? Fill out the template, share it, done. Major incidents? Schedule the meeting, get everyone in a room, talk it through. **When should we skip a post-incident review?** If it was a one-off noise alert, a test that tripped something minor, or a brief blip with zero customer impact, write a two-sentence note and move on. Teams told us the fastest way to kill the habit is to force a formal postmortem for every tiny hiccup. **What if there's blame happening?** Call it out. "Hey, this feels like it's blaming Sarah. Can we reframe this as a systems problem?" Psychological safety matters. If people don't feel safe, they'll hide incidents next time. --- ## Post-Incident Review Best Practices: The Bottom Line Postmortems don't have to be theater. They don't have to be lengthy documents nobody reads. The teams that actually learn from incidents keep it simple: one page max, within 48 hours, systems not people, action items with owners and deadlines, and shared learning. The **lessons learned** from each incident should improve your systems, not just document failures. If you want a template, grab one of the three above. If you want to go deeper, read [our research on scaling incident management with 25+ engineering teams and common coordination bottlenecks](/blog/scaling-incident-management). For more on **incident response** and **incident management** workflows, see [our guide to on-call rotations](/blog/on-call-rotation-guide). The goal isn't to write a perfect document. The goal is to learn something and make sure it doesn't happen again. Everything else is noise. --- **Want the next step?** Read [our on-call rotation guide with the 2-minute handoff framework and primary+backup escalation rules](/blog/on-call-rotation-guide). --- ## Looking for Incident Management Software? We're building post-incident review tools that integrate with Slack: auto-populate timelines from your incident channel, template suggestions based on severity, action item tracking that doesn't get lost. Built for teams 20-100 people who want simple, not enterprise complexity. [Join the waitlist for early access](/contact) ---