DevOps Paradox DOP 320: Why Dashboards Alone Are Not Enough for Incident Response
Oct 15, 2025
Join Jim Hirschauer, Head of Product Marketing at Xurrent and seasoned IT operations expert, as he dives into the complexities of incident response. He discusses why dashboards alone aren’t sufficient for resolving incidents and emphasizes the importance of human expertise and organizational culture. Jim also explores the evolving nature of incident management, the role of AI in preserving knowledge, and the challenges with outdated runbooks. His insights reveal how enhancing communication and automation can significantly improve operational efficiency.
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Old Problems Persist Despite New Tools
- Incident management problems from 15–20 years ago still persist today despite better tools.
- Human culture, silos, and communication remain primary barriers to effective incident response.
Executives Interrupting War Rooms
- Jim recalls executives dropping into war rooms and stopping progress by demanding updates.
- The interruptions forced teams to pause troubleshooting and provide repetitive briefings to stakeholders.
Postmortems Rarely Lead To Fixes
- Post-incident follow-up often fails because teams return to overflowing queues and higher priority work.
- That failure to complete postmortem actions causes repeat incidents across the industry.