We have started a troubleshooting guide, but ultimately what we should build to help ourselves and to help support sustainability is a detailed playbook for incidents.
What is a playbook
Incident response playbooks standardize the response to a specific type of incident with procedures that include specific actions that the organization must take to prepare for, respond to, and recover from specific incident types- especially if they're tied to our school's safety, basic operations, or ability to teach.
Why
For example, the current situation for the PA system is a prime example of both a safety and operations issue. We have very minimal information, communication, and procedures to help guide us and prioritize how to most effectively recover.
As we learn from this incident, we should make notes, standardize, document and provide assistance to our future selves so we protect and preserve institutional knowledge.
Items for consideration
A visual diagram of what the thought process, order of importance in troubleshooting is. For example:
Do we need to call our vendor
Is there a patch/quick fix to apply
Understanding backups and pitfalls/limitations of backup - for example the all-call system (PA system) we can use the phones, but how do we make sure teachers have that information handy and have reminders. Building that reminder to send to teachers with how to use phones as a speaker system would be a part of the first steps in an incident response for this situation. We would already have an email template we could just copy and paste and hit send. That would be a part of the process
Is there a software upgrade to apply?
Is there a rebuild required?
Should we consider swithcing products- where is our contract or investment? What does the county do?
As we experience issues, we need to evaluate things and provide clarity and perspective in retrospect so we can learn, grow, and become great at avoiding similar issues, or at a minimum be prepared and look professional when it happens again.
Background
We have started a troubleshooting guide, but ultimately what we should build to help ourselves and to help support sustainability is a detailed playbook for incidents.
What is a playbook
Incident response playbooks standardize the response to a specific type of incident with procedures that include specific actions that the organization must take to prepare for, respond to, and recover from specific incident types- especially if they're tied to our school's safety, basic operations, or ability to teach.
Why
For example, the current situation for the PA system is a prime example of both a safety and operations issue. We have very minimal information, communication, and procedures to help guide us and prioritize how to most effectively recover.
As we learn from this incident, we should make notes, standardize, document and provide assistance to our future selves so we protect and preserve institutional knowledge.
Items for consideration
As we experience issues, we need to evaluate things and provide clarity and perspective in retrospect so we can learn, grow, and become great at avoiding similar issues, or at a minimum be prepared and look professional when it happens again.