It Takes a Village...
“Wait... who’s supposed to do what right now?”
When a product incident hits, chaos often follows - and not because people are unskilled. It’s because no one planned who does what.
In my last article, I shared why Product Incident Response (PIR) isn’t optional—it’s mission-critical. Today, let’s talk about the people side.
Because when an incident strikes, everyone scrambles:
Customer Service's phones & chat are blowing up.
Engineers are knee-deep in logs.
Sales is texting product leaders.
Executives want answers—yesterday.
The problem isn’t ability—it’s alignment. It’s because no one planned for it. Or worse—they did, but only on a slide deck nobody’s looked at in a year.
Let’s fix that.
👥 It Really Does Take a Village
Incident Response isn’t just about fixing code and getting back to our routines. It’s about protecting the customer experience, communication, restoring trust, and making the right calls under pressure.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller
🧠 Group 1: The “Customers” (Business Stakeholders)
These folks feel the pain of incidents first:
Customer Service & Success, Sales, Account Reps – Often first to hear from customers and relay urgency.
Product Managers – Understand impact and own long-term improvements.
Executives & Ops Teams – Need clarity, comms, and a sense of control.
They don’t fix the issue—but they need communication, context, and influence in the recovery plan.
⚙️ Group 2: The “Responders” (Tech & Ops Teams)
These are your frontline doers and decision-makers:
Incident Coordinator – Orchestrates the response and owns the postmortem.
App Support + SREs – Detect, triage, escalate, monitor, and assist with resolution.
Software Engineers – Identify root cause and implement the fix.
Engineering Managers – Allocate resources and guide devs.
Engineering / Ops / Support Leaders – Own the tough calls: rollback approvals, customer comms, and stakeholder escalations.
When each of these roles is clearly defined, the chaos becomes... manageable.
🧭 Who Does What? Here’s a RACI Model to help
R = Responsible (does the work) A = Accountable (final decision maker)
C = Consulted (input is needed) I = Informed (needs updates)
A typical RACI in high-functioning orgs:
Product Incident Response typical RACI
💡 Your org may vary slightly, but starting here prevents last-minute confusion and political tug-of-war during high-stress moments.
💬 Final Thought
If you don’t define these roles before an incident, you’ll be forced to define them during one. And that’s when mistakes get made, customers get angry, and reputations take a hit.
If you're building something important, Product Incident Response isn’t just a tech issue—it’s about leadership.
🗣️ I’d love to hear from you: What’s been your biggest Product Incident Response pain point? Have you seen these roles clearly defined—or totally unclear?
👀 Coming up next... In my next article, I’ll show you how to build a responsive culture—so your team doesn’t just survive incidents, but learns from them and gets stronger every time.
