Crisis Communication Webinar

Crisis Communication Breakdown

Lessons Learned at VictorOps

Michael Merideth, VictorOpsBlake Thorne, StatusPage.io

Crisis Communications at VictorOps

One Goal: Keep Our Brand

Promise

The Beginner’s Path

Our Process: A Work in Progress

Crisis Communication is Scary!

Not Communicating is Worse!

“Nature abhors a vacuum”-Aristotle

Honesty Pays Dividends

“I cannot tell a lie…”

-Teddy Roosevelt

It Takes Buy-In At All Levels

DevOps can’t just go it alone

Every business function has something to contribute

Messaging needs to be accurate, but also accessible

Agree on When, and How Often

Generally: Communicate as soon as possible

Some issues need to be contained before they become public

Set a regular cadence for updates

Agree on What Gets Communicated

Help your users make intelligent choices and you’ll like their decisions better

Provide context and realistic ETAs

Use Incident Templates to ease messaging

Agree on Who Manages the Message

Speak with a single, consistent voice

Agree on Where the Message is Shared

VictorOps’ Cross-Functional CC Team

Crisis Communication Training and Certification

Institute For Crisis Management:http://crisisconsultant.com/

Non-Disruptive Crisis Communication

The CC Process can Help During the Firefight

Context

InsightData

Applied DevOps: Retrospect on the CC Process

•What went well?•What could have gone better?•Action items:•Continue doing…•Stop doing...•Start doing...

Applied DevOps: X-Functional Post-Mortems

What was the technical impact?

What was the business impact?

What was the reputational impact?

Applied DevOps: The VO Toolset

Key Takeaways• Your failures will become public

• Who controls when and how the information gets out: you, or someone else?

• Having a plan makes crisis communication less of a burden on the people fighting the fire

• Doing it right will build trust and loyalty with your users