The Incident Commander Handover Pattern

Long incidents need fresh leadership. The handover protocol that prevents context loss.

When to handover

Every 4 hours during active incident.

When the IC is too tired to make sound decisions.

When the incident scope shifts and a different IC has more relevant expertise.

How

5-minute briefing: timeline, current hypothesis, in-flight actions, key people involved.

New IC verifies understanding. Outgoing IC stays available for 30 minutes.

Avoid

Silent handover. The team needs to know who is in charge.

Multiple ICs simultaneously. Confusion costs minutes.