Prepared to Fail

No one really talks about failure. Sure people talk about failing fast and often, but they're not usually referring to your website falling over when they say it. We all like to pretend that we've never made a colossal mistake that caused everything to go up in a puff of smoke. But it happens. And when it does there's more than a moment of panic as you realise you're not quite sure what to do next.

On the rare occasion that someone is talking about failure, it's usually from the developer's perspective. So what are you, The Project Manager, supposed to do the moment after you realise you had a bad deployment, a malicious attack, or an expectedly good visit from the traffic fairy? I've been there. It's not fun. But I took notes about what works (and what doesn't work). Really, really detailed notes. And I want to share them with you.

By the end of this presentation, projects managers who attend this session will be able to:

• Create an easy-to-use incident response plan with useful copy-and-paste templates for communications. (Hint: your gut doesn't always pick the right words in a moment of panic.)
• Use the right language to communicate effectively with key stakeholders including developers, clients, and upstream service providers. (Hint: it's not the same language for each type of stakeholder.)
• Write useful incident response documents that clearly summarises what happened, why it happened, and what will be put in place to mitigate this type of incident in the future. (Hint: if something happens once, it may happen again. Having a clear solution documented makes life easier for Future You.)

Nobody likes to fail, and no one really wants to be good at failing. But with a little bit of planning (and an arsenal of GIFs), you too survive just about any horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.