What It Means to Be an Incident Commander

When systems fail or outages occur in IT Service Management (ITSM) and DevOps environments, the incident commander’s role becomes pivotal. Acting as the central figure in high-pressure situations, the incident commander ensures incidents are managed swiftly and effectively. 

Establishing a leadership hierarchy helps teams avoid confusion about who to turn to with questions and concerns, allowing them to focus their efforts where needed. 

High-quality leadership is crucial for success, especially when there is increased pressure to resolve an issue with minimal downtime. 

When the pressure is on, organizations should establish an incident response plan and software alongside an incident commander to ensure responders act quickly and coordinate efficiently. 

Furthermore, the impact and demand on incident commanders are increasing rapidly due to the growing complexity of cyber-attacks, data privacy regulations, and the widespread adoption of cloud computing and other advanced technologies. After all, the global incident response market size was estimated at USD 25.67 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19.9% from 2024 to 2030.

What Is an Incident Commander?

The incident commander (IC) or “incident manager” is the primary contact and coordinator for all resolvers and resources during an incident. 

The commander is responsible for planning, coordinating, communicating, and leading the incident response team throughout an incident’s lifecycle, from the initial response to the post-mortem. 

The IC is responsible for overseeing overall incident management, making strategic decisions, and ensuring effective allocation of resources. 

In high-pressure situations, the IC’s ability to maintain composure, make quick decisions, and keep the incident response team focused is crucial to minimizing downtime and ensuring a swift resolution.

The incident response team comprises various subject matter experts and specialists who assist the IC in resolving the incident.

Each team member brings specific expertise—network security, software development, or infrastructure management—that helps diagnose and address the incident’s root cause.

The Incident Commander’s Impact

As we have learned, an IC is critical in resolving incidents efficiently and effectively. Below are the key areas where an Incident Commander drives impact:

• Leadership and decision-making
• Coordination and communication
• Efficient resource management
• Risk mitigation and damage control
• Reputation management
• Stakeholder engagement

Let’s examine the IC’s role and responsibilities and how they achieve these impacts.

The Role and Responsibilities of an Incident Commander

An incident commander is usually an IT or DevOps team member responsible for overseeing incident response. Depending on the nature of the incident, multiple people may fill that role, and highly long incidents can have multiple commanders working in shifts. 

What’s important is that at least one person is constantly tasked with this responsibility. The duties of an IC typically include the following:

• Incident preparation
• Decision-making
• Delegation
• Oversight
• Team alignment
• Escalation
• Resource management
• Planning
• Post-mortems

To better understand how an IC coordinates with its team to implement an incident response plan. Let’s explore a hypothetical incident from the perspective of an incident commander.

Incident Response Planning

Before an incident occurs, the IC leads a team that defines and develops an incident response strategy. This typically includes establishing communication channels, defining escalation policies, creating and organizing runbooks, and briefing teams on incident response plans.

Their first responsibility is to assess the situation. After cross-checking various monitoring metrics and testing the web application, the IC determines:

1. Is the problem genuine or confirmed, and how severe is it?
2. Should the response team be alerted?
3. Begin working on a solution.

After the commander confirms the incident’s validity, they must develop an action plan. In this case, the IC recognizes that a network issue is likely hampering the application and immediately contacts network engineers to diagnose the issue further. 

While they get to work, the IC loops in other relevant stakeholders and coordinates any additional resources the resolvers need.

Incident Detection and Escalation

During the incident, the commander takes an active role in determining the best remediation strategy. This might involve investigating the history of past incidents to find a potential resolution and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of proposed resolution strategies. 

To help track progress and provide a record of the incident as it unfolds, the commander often appoints a “scribe” who will note each significant event within the incident communication channels.

The IC’s role is to determine whether the escalation is necessary and who has the appropriate skills to provide the required tools and knowledge. The commander is also tasked with organizing relevant information for any incoming responders to bring them up to speed.

Incident Coordination and Resolution

After the team has decided on an appropriate course of action, the IC must approve the strategy and ensure the team has the proper skills and resources to implement it. 

They must remain in close contact with the various teams to resolve the problem. If attempts fail to resolve the problem, the IC must reassess the situation and determine the next course of action by asking questions like:

• Why did the solution fail?
• Was the problem misdiagnosed?
• Did the new solution introduce problems of its own that propagated the issue?
• Does the incident response team have the appropriate skills and expertise to implement the changes?

The IC is the primary contact and coordinator for all resolvers and resources, informing necessary teams and stakeholders about the incident.

Some situations may require extensive communication between different teams and stakeholders. Depending on the resources available to the IC, they may appoint a communications coordinator as an intermediate liaison. 

This frees the commander to take on a more strategic role in assessing the problem and the proposed solutions, while the communications lead ensures responders stay in the loop.

Post-Incident

Incident commanders need to be flexible and respond quickly to changing circumstances. While some incidents may have apparent solutions, severe incidents can introduce confusion and complex root causes that aren’t easy to diagnose or address. 

In some situations, temporary remediation steps might bring the service back to normal operating conditions while mapping out a long-term plan to address the underlying issue.

Even after resolving an incident, the IC continues its work. They document the incident, gather details on the root cause, and explain how the team remediated the issue.

The commander then organizes this information into a post-mortem report, which helps identify new opportunities for improvement and serves as a reference if the issue arises again.

What Skills Does an Incident Commander Need?

Wearing the title of IC demands a vital skillset, including:

• Strong communication skills.
• The ability to work under pressure.
• Interpersonal skills to help teams work effectively in stressful situations.
• Tactical thinking and the ability to quickly strategize.
• The ability to assess complex issues.
• Organizational skills for delegating responsibilities and making the best use of available resources.
• Rapid problem-solving and confidence in determining a direction for team members.

Best Practices for Incident Commanders

During a critical incident, Incident Commanders play a pivotal role in ensuring efficient communication, rapid decision-making, and effective resolution. Following these best practices can help Incident Commanders lead their teams through high-pressure scenarios successfully:

• Establish clear communication channels: Ensure all team members and stakeholders know how and where to communicate during the incident (e.g., through a designated Slack channel or incident management platform). Use centralized tools to relay updates, assign tasks, and avoid confusion or miscommunication. 
• Define roles and responsibilities: Assign specific roles to each team member, such as scribe, technical lead, or communications lead, to prevent overlap and ensure all critical tasks are covered. Play to your team’s strengths and expertise. Clearly outline responsibilities to avoid delays or missed steps in the response. Run training and drills as a team to ensure everyone can connect theory to potential scenarios they may face. 
• Stay calm and lead confidently: Maintain composure under pressure to instill confidence in the team. Lead by example and focus on solutions rather than the scale of the problem. Be adaptable, crises can unfold unpredictably, so be ready to pivot. 
• Leverage incident management tools: Use incident management platforms like xMatters to automate notifications, track progress, and streamline collaboration. Integrate with observability tools to gain real-time insights and quickly identify root causes. 
• Effectively prioritize tasks: Focus first on actions that minimize user impact and restore critical services. Use frameworks like the Incident Command System (ICS) to structure and prioritize tasks based on severity and urgency. 
• Ensure real-time documentation: Document key decisions, timestamps, and actions taken during the incident to create a detailed post-incident report. Use collaborative tools to enable team members to contribute to documentation as the incident unfolds. 
• Maintain stakeholder transparency: Regularly update stakeholders, including business leaders and customers, with accurate and concise information. Share the status, impact, and estimated time for resolution to manage expectations.

Real-Life Applications of Incident Commander

The role of an IC is crucial across various fields, from IT operations to emergency response and cybersecurity. Below are examples of how this leadership role is applied in different scenarios:

• IT and DevOps

In IT, DevOps, and SREs settings, the IC responds to critical incidents, such as system outages, data breaches, or software failures. They ensure swift coordination and resolution to minimize downtime and protect operations.

• Emergency Response

The IC concept is also widely used in emergency response situations, such as firefighting, law enforcement, and disaster management. They manage resources and direct teams to respond efficiently to high-pressure, life-critical situations.

• Cybersecurity

In cybersecurity, the IC is responsible for leading the organization’s response to cyber threats, such as malware infections, data breaches, or ransomware attacks. Their leadership is vital in coordinating defenses, mitigating damage, and ensuring timely communication with stakeholders.

Giving Incident Commanders the Tools They Need

There’s no substitute for a capable, skilled IC. However, various automated tools can ease the burden of alerting, communicating, and coordinating during an incident. 

Automation can help with tasks such as collecting data for post-mortems, actively monitoring systems for anomalies, and even executing mitigation procedures such as deployment rollbacks.

Lighten your incident commander’s load with the help of a robust service reliability platform. Incident Response Everbridge xMatters provides a rich suite of automated tools that give your IC and their response teams the tools they need to tackle any incident, big or small.

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