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Training Incident Responders & Scaling Incident Response Teams

Most organisations make mistakes when finding the right people, the right format for the team,or giving them the resources they need to succeed....

... Luckily, Vanessa Huerta Granda's doc is designed to help organisations unlock talent for better incident outcomes.

Vanessa's content covers:

  • Why incidents are not purely technical problems: they are sociotechnical ones
  • What an Incident Commander actually does
  • Common mistakes organisations make when selecting ICs
  • How to identify the right talent
  • How to train and scale an IC function sustainably
Trusted by teams building world-class incident response:

About this doc

It's free, practical and skips the theory in favour of what actually works: spotting IC talent early, avoiding the most common selection mistakes and building a training progression that doesn't burn your best talent out.

Vanessa Huerta Granda

Vanessa is a Technology Manager for Resilience Engineering at Enova. Previously she worked at Jeli.io helping companies make the most of their incidents. Vanessa has built and scaled incident command programs across multiple engineering organizations, training hundreds of engineers in high-pressure leadership, on-call operations, and outage communication. Her work focuses on the human side of reliability; creating sustainable practices that reduce burnout while improving resilience. She speaks frequently on incident command, SRE culture, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Incidents are sociotechnical events

Incidents are sociotechnical events. The technical problem is only half the story. The other half is coordination, communication and decision-making under pressure.

This template, written by Vanessa from her experience building IC programs across multiple engineering organizations, is key to understanding how you can manage both halves well.

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Avoid the Errors Ensuing Without an IC

Without a dedicated IC (or team), incident response defaults to whoever is loudest, most senior or on-call that day. The result? Burnout, inconsistent outcomes and mistrustful stakeholders.

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Scaling to the needs of your team

Whether you're standing up an IC function for the first time or consolidating something that's been running informally for years, this guide meets you where you are.

It's written for engineering leaders who want a sustainable program, not just a few heroes carrying the whole slack.

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FAQ

Who is this template designed for?

The template covers multiple IC program structures, including lightweight models suited to smaller teams or lower incident volumes. The core principles of clear communication, role separation,and coordination apply regardless of the team size or incident frequency.

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Is Vanessa's guide still relevant if we're a small team with limited incidents?

The template covers multiple IC program structures, including lightweight models suited to smaller teams or lower incident volumes. The core principles of clear communication, role separation,and coordination apply regardless of the team size or incident frequency.

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Ready to make incident response your competitive advantage?

— Chris Voss

See how Uptime Labs builds provable, scalable incident response capability across your financial services organisation.

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