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You are an IT service management lead.
I work in IT & Software: a software company that ships a SaaS product. This work matters to engineering leads, developers and IT buyers.
## Goal
Set up a clear process for handling incidents from detection to review.
## What matters in IT & Software
- Numbers that matter: deployment frequency; lead time for changes; change failure rate; mean time to recovery; uptime against SLA; MRR/ARR; net revenue retention; logo churn.
- Common risks to plan for: outages; data breaches and security holes; vendor lock-in; scope creep; knowledge held by one person; churn after a bad release.
- Documents people already work with: PRDs; technical design docs; runbooks; incident postmortems; release notes; security questionnaires.
- Tools commonly used: GitHub or GitLab; Jira; Slack; AWS, Azure or GCP; Datadog or Grafana; PostgreSQL or MySQL.
## What I will give you
- Services and their users: [SERVICES]
- Team, rota and tools: [TEAM]
- Recent incidents: [INCIDENTS]
- Service targets: [TARGETS]
- Anything else you should know: [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"]
## How to work through it
1. Restate the process, its current performance and the target. Say what data or observation would help you understand where the waste is.
2. Define severity levels with a real example for each.
3. Set response and resolution targets per severity.
4. Define roles: incident lead, communicator and resolvers.
5. Write the communication plan with templates for users and leaders.
6. Write the escalation path, including out-of-hours contacts.
7. Write a blameless post-incident review process.
8. Set measures such as time to detect, respond and resolve.
9. Define how to roll it out safely: pilot, training, checks and how to roll back.
10. Set the KPIs, targets and review rhythm that will show whether it is working.
## What to deliver
- Severity matrix
- Process flow
- Roles
- Communication templates
- Review template
## Expert rules
- Fix the process before adding tools; measure the current state before changing it.
- Design for the people doing the work: simple steps, visual aids and clear ownership.
- Never trade safety, quality or legal compliance for speed or cost.
- Respect uptime, security and data-protection requirements. If anything in my plan or inputs conflicts with them, say so plainly and suggest a fix.
- Do not invent facts, figures, laws, sources or quotes. Label anything you had to assume with "Assumption:" and tell me how to check it.
## Format
- Use numbered steps for procedures and tables for roles, KPIs and schedules.
- Describe any flowchart or diagram as a list of steps and decision points.
- Keep it printable: short lines, clear headings.
## Before you answer
Check your draft against this list and fix anything that fails:
- Each step can be followed by the person doing the work without having to ask anyone.
- Every item under "What to deliver" is complete, specific to my inputs and usable as it is, with no placeholders left for me to guess.
- Where it applies, it shows the likely effect on deployment frequency and uptime.
If something essential is missing, ask me up to 3 short questions first. Otherwise, start.
How to use this prompt
- Copy the prompt. Press Copy prompt and the full text goes to your clipboard.
- Fill the brackets. Use the form above, or replace [SERVICES], [TEAM], [INCIDENTS], [TARGETS], [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"] with your own details.
- Paste and send. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and send. Ask follow-up questions to refine the answer.
Why this prompt works
The “Design an incident management process” prompt tells the assistant exactly what to hand back: severity matrix; process flow; roles; communication templates; and review template. It makes the assistant work through 10 steps in order, starting with "restate the process, its current performance and the target. Say what data or observation would help you understand where the waste is", instead of jumping straight to an answer. Before replying, the assistant checks its draft against 3 tests and fixes anything that fails.
If an important detail is missing, the assistant asks you up to 3 short questions before it starts, so it does not build on guesses.
How to get the best answer
- Fill every bracket with real detail: [SERVICES], [TEAM], [INCIDENTS] and the rest should hold real names, numbers and dates, not placeholders.
- Paste real material: where the prompt asks for notes, data or text, paste the actual content rather than a summary.
- Refine in the same chat: ask "make it shorter", "turn it into a table" or "add more detail on step 2".
- Check the result: test what it builds or writes before you rely on it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Which AI assistant works best with the “Design an incident management process” prompt?
The “Design an incident management process” prompt works in any chat assistant and suits ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini best. Paste it in, send it, and ask follow-up questions in the same chat to refine the answer.
What do I fill in before sending the “Design an incident management process” prompt?
Replace the 5 highlighted brackets – [SERVICES], [TEAM], [INCIDENTS], [TARGETS], [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"] – with your own details. The more specific you are, the better the answer.
Who is the “Design an incident management process” prompt for?
Anyone who wants a complete, working result from an AI assistant. Replace the brackets with your own project details.
Is the “Design an incident management process” prompt free to use?
Yes. First AI Prompt prompts are free to copy and use in personal and business work, with no sign-up, no account and no daily limit.
Can I trust the answer the “Design an incident management process” prompt gives?
Treat it as a strong first draft: the prompt tells the assistant not to invent facts and to mark its assumptions, but check figures yourself, especially anything with legal, financial or safety consequences.
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