Incident Response Roster Clarity (Roles, Not Heroes)

Every incident has roles. Commander, communicator, investigator, scribe. The role definitions that prevent the hero anti-pattern.

The four roles

Commander: decides. Coordinates the response, sets direction, makes calls.

Communicator: speaks to stakeholders. Customers, leadership, other teams.

Investigator: digs. Finds the cause, proposes fixes.

Scribe: documents. Timeline, decisions, who did what.

The hero anti-pattern

One person plays all four roles. The hero. Burns out; misses things; cannot scale.

Healthy incidents have at least three distinct people. Even small incidents.

If you do not have three people, the incident is too small to need this structure or you are understaffed.

Rotate roles

Newer engineers take scribe; senior engineers take commander.

Rotation builds skills. After a year, every team member has played every role.

Specialisation is the failure mode. The team becomes brittle; the senior on-call is the bottleneck.