Why updates at every incident phase and every 20-30 minutes matter to stakeholders

Keeping calm when the smoke is rising from a major incident isn’t just about fixing the problem—it’s about how you communicate while you work. In the middle of a disruption, stakeholders crave clarity, not radio silence. They want to know what happened, what’s being done, and when things might shift. The rule of thumb that often works well in practice is simple: send updates at every new incident phase and roughly every 20-30 minutes. This cadence isn’t about flooding inboxes; it’s about steady, meaningful information that helps everyone stay aligned and reduces unnecessary anxiety.

Why cadence matters—and what it buys you

Think of an incident as a journey rather than a single event. If you only update after you’ve “mopped up,” you leave customers and leadership guessing. On the other hand, nobody benefits from a constant stream of vague status emails that don’t add new information. The right cadence gives you a rhythm: you pause to assess, you push out what’s essential, you reset expectations, and you keep moving.

By updating at each new phase, you’re doing a few things that pay off quickly:

• Transparency builds trust. People understand what’s happening and why certain steps are taken.

• Expectations stay calibrated. You can soften or tighten timelines as you learn more, instead of leaving people to guess.

• It creates a record. If the incident lasts longer, you’ve got a cadence to fall back on, which reduces confusion later.

What counts as a “phase” in an incident

If you’re new to incident response, the word “phase” can feel abstract. In practice, most responders find it helpful to segment work into a few natural stages:

• Identification and impact: How did it start? What’s down, what’s affected, and who feels it first?

• Triage and investigation: What’s the probable cause? What evidence supports it? What’s the scope?

• Containment and mitigation: What steps are being taken to stop the bleeding? Are there workarounds?

• Recovery and restoration: What is returning to normal? What dependencies must align for full recovery?

• Verification and closure: Have you validated that services are stable? What follow-up measures are in place? What’s the plan for a post-incident review?

For each phase, you tailor the update. It isn’t a single monologue; it’s a phased conversation that helps stakeholders understand not only what’s happening now but why it matters in the bigger picture.

What to include in each update

A clean, usable update is a small package of critical information. Here’s a practical template you can adapt:

• Status summary: A one-liner about the current state (e.g., “Mitigation in progress; 60% of services restored”).

• Impact: Which customers or systems are affected? What is the business impact (service outages, degraded performance, slow responses)?

• What we know: Known issues, confirmed root causes (if available), and any known unknowns.

• Actions being taken: The concrete steps the team is executing right now.

• ETA or timeline: If you can, give a rough timeframe for the next milestone; if not, share the next planned update and the signal you’ll use to trigger it.

• Next steps: What you expect to complete in the near term and what to watch for.

• Contacts and channels: Who’s on point for questions, and where updates live (Statuspage, chat channel, email blast, incident command brief).

• Workarounds and alternatives: If users can partial-miss or bypass the problem, outline safe paths.

Keep the language human, not robotic. Use plain terms where possible, but don’t shy away from a few precise technical descriptors when they add clarity. A well-crafted update feels like a quick, honest note from a team that’s got this under control, not a press release.

Channels and cadence: how to deliver updates without drowning everyone

Choosing the right channels is as important as the cadence itself. A typical, effective setup looks like this:

• Status page/incident portal: The primary source of truth. This is where the “official” updates land, with a timestamp and a summary of the phase and impact.

• Internal comms (Slack, Teams, or IRC): Short bursts of update text for the on-call engineers and incident commander. Quick questions, quick answers, quick pivots.

• Stakeholder briefings (email or a standing slide deck): A concise recap for executives and business owners who need context but not greasy technical detail.

• Public or customer-facing communications (where appropriate): Clear, non-technical language that explains impact and what’s being done, plus a path to status pages for ongoing updates.

The cadence here mirrors the cadence you’ll follow in the body of the incident: every phase change, plus a regular check-in every 20-30 minutes. If you pause a moment to re-check your data and you’re about to move to Mitigation, that’s a phase shift—time to publish a new update. If nothing changes, you still publish a short “no new developments” update at your regular interval so people aren’t left guessing.

Templates you can borrow (and customize)

Templates cut down the cognitive load and keep updates consistent. Here are two light, adaptable templates you can start with:

• Phase update (new phase)

• Phase: [Discovery/Triage/Containment/Recovery/Closure]

• Status: [Current state, e.g., “Mitigation in progress”]

• Impact: [Which services/users affected]

• Actions in progress: [What the team is doing now]

• ETA for next milestone: [Timeframe]

• Known issues: [Any blockers]

• Next steps: [What will happen next]

• Contacts: [Incident Commander or primary contact]

• Interim status update (no dramatic change)

• Phase: [Current phase]

• Status: [Brief]

• Impact: [Affected services]

• What we’re doing: [Key action]

• ETA for the next update: [Time]

• Quick tip/workaround (if any): [Short, safe workaround]

These aren’t rigid scripts. They’re conversation starters that help you keep content tight, specific, and useful.

Real-world sense checks: common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Even with a good cadence, teams trip over a few recurring issues. Here are some quick reminders to keep updates effective:

• Don’t overpromise. If you’re uncertain about a timeline, say so clearly and commit to the next concrete checkpoint.

• Don’t bury the lead. Put the most important info up front—what’s affected and what’s being done.

• Don’t flood channels with fluff. Keep each update lean and filled with action items, not a recap of everything you tried.

• Don’t leave the audience out. Make sure the right audiences get the right level of detail through the right channels.

• Don’t forget the aftercare. Once things calm, publish a summary of what happened and what you’ll do differently next time.

A quick scenario to ground the idea

Imagine a sudden outage affecting the e-commerce platform during a busy evening. Here’s how the cadence might unfold:

• Phase 1 (identification): “identified outage affecting checkout service; impact on 30% of users.” Update channels: Statuspage and internal chat. Actions: incident command formed; initial containment steps started.

• Phase 2 (triage/investigation): “root cause suspected in a downstream payment gateway; partial outages continue. ETA for next update: 15 minutes.” Next steps: reroute payments to a backup gateway; monitor queue depth.

• Phase 3 (mitigation): “backup gateway engaged; checkout service partially restored; remaining latency under control but retries high.” Delivery: a customer-facing note with expected recovery time and workaround for high-priority users.

• Phase 4 (recovery): “services stabilizing; working toward full restoration; monitoring for regression.”

• Phase 5 (closure): “incident resolved; post-incident review scheduled; root cause confirmed; improvements planned.”

In each phase, the update answers the essential questions: what happened, who’s affected, what’s being done now, what’s next. And you’re doing it every 20-30 minutes so the information stays fresh and credible.

A practical mindset for teams on the move

Incident response isn’t only about technical savviness; it’s about disciplined communication. The cadence becomes a daily practice you carry into calmer times too. It teaches teams to pause and assess before acting, to document decisions, and to consider how information flows to different audiences. When people see a steady, thoughtful rhythm, they feel less like they’re in the dark and more like they’re part of a well-run response.

If you’re building a playbook or tuning a runbook, this cadence belongs near the top. It’s the heartbeat of transparent incident management. It’s the thing that makes a rough incident feel manageable rather than overwhelming. And if you can pair the cadence with clear ownership—an incident commander, a communications lead, and a technical lead—the updates land with authority and clarity.

A compact checklist to carry into the next major incident

• Define the cadence: phase-based updates plus a 20-30 minute check-in.

• Establish the primary channels: Statuspage, internal chat, executive brief, and, when needed, customer-facing updates.

• Use phase-based templates for consistency.

• Include core content in every update: status, impact, actions, ETA/next steps, known issues, and contacts.

• Verify accuracy before publishing; if uncertain, caveat and commit to the next update.

• Debrief after the incident to refine the cadence and templates.

A final thought: consistency changes minds

There are few things more reassuring than a calm, methodical team moving through an outage. The regular cadence of updates does more than convey information; it signals your competence, your respect for those affected, and your commitment to solving the problem. In a world where outages are almost inevitable, the way you communicate during the outage often matters as much as the fix itself.

If you’re assembling a team approach to incident response, start with the cadence. Make the phase-based updates routine, not a last-minute scramble. And when you do that, you’ll notice something subtle: stakeholders will feel seen, engineers will feel oriented, and the whole organization will move toward resolution with a shared sense of purpose. That’s not just good incident hygiene—that’s good teamwork.