Blameless Postmortem
A post-incident analysis that focuses on system and process failures rather than individual blame.
A post-incident analysis that focuses on system and process failures rather than individual blame.
## "You Can't Fire Your Way to Reliability" **Blamelessness** is the core cultural tenet of SRE. It assumes that everyone comes to work with good intentions. If they broke something, it's because **the system allowed them to break it**. ### Blame vs. Accountability * **Blame**: "Dave is an idiot for pushing that button." (Outcome: Dave hides his mistakes next time). * **Accountability**: "Dave is responsible for helping us redesign the button so it is safer." (Outcome: The system improves). ### The Cognitive Science When people fear punishment, their prefrontal cortex (problem solving) shuts down. A blameless culture is safer *and* smarter.
ExThe Intern
"A new hire ran a test script in production, wiping customer data."
Why Blameless Postmortem Matters
Humans can't fix complex systems; only systems can fix systems. Blame creates fear and hides problems.
Blameless postmortems create psychological safety, which leads to faster incident resolution and honest reporting.