The Deputy’s role during an incident is to support the Incident Commander in managing tasks.

When a pager chirps and the incident clock starts ticking, every role on the incident team has a part to play. But one job stands out for keeping the ship steady: the Deputy. In the PagerDuty Incident Responder context, the Deputy primarily supports the Incident Commander to manage tasks. It’s not about stepping into the Commander’s chair and calling all the shots; it’s about making sure the wheels keep turning so the big decisions stay sharp and the response stays organized.

Let me explain why that support matters. Incidents are messy by nature. Information floods in from monitors, dashboards, on-call engineers, and user reports. If someone doesn’t synthesize that stream into action, the response can stall. That’s where the Deputy comes in. Think of the Deputy as the practical sidekick who translates strategic intent into doable steps, tracks what’s been done, and nudges the team when progress stalls. This setup lets the Incident Commander stay focused on the high-stakes choices—prioritizing impact, assessing risk, and communicating the big picture—while the day-to-day grind of coordinating tasks stays well-managed.

A quick mental model helps here. Picture a live rescue operation on a crowded street. The Incident Commander is the lead on the crisis vision—who needs to be alerted, what areas require containment, and what the safety criteria look like. The Deputy is the field marshal’s assistant, ensuring every task has a next action, every action has a point person, and every update gets logged and circulated. The Deputy isn’t calling the shots; they’re making sure the shots get taken on time and in the right order.

What does that look like in practice?

• Coordinating action items: The Deputy tracks who is doing what, by when, and what dependencies might block progress. They’re the person who slides a post-it into a digital board, then follows up with a gentle nudge if a task slips.

• Monitoring progress: While the Incident Commander holds the strategic view, the Deputy keeps a pulse on day-to-day operations. Is a fix implemented? Are monitoring dashboards updated? Are rollback procedures ready if needed? The Deputy ensures the status is accurate and current.

• Executing the incident response plan: The plan is the map; the Deputy handles the mile markers. They ensure tasks align with the plan’s sequence and that new actions arise promptly when the situation shifts.

• Maintaining information flow: With a steady stream of updates, someone has to curate the essential details for the right audiences. The Deputy helps summarize events for the Commander and the broader team, and sometimes flags when a communication gap appears.

Notice what isn’t in that list? The Deputy isn’t the external communications lead, the supervisor of all on-site personnel, or the person who owns every logistics decision. Those duties can be essential, but they’re often handled by separate roles that partner with the Deputy to support the bigger objective: incident containment, clear progress, and swift recovery.

Why this partnership is so powerful

• The Incident Commander can focus on strategy: The big picture decisions—what to stop first, what to recover next, who needs to be informed—sit with the Commander. The Deputy shoulders the operational workload so those strategic decisions aren’t clouded by everyday hustle.

• It creates a reliable tempo: When you’re in the middle of a fast-moving incident, you need a rhythm. The Deputy helps maintain a steady tempo, turning strategic intent into cross-functional action, and ensuring nobody sits idle during crucial moments.

• It bolsters adaptability: Incidents rarely follow a textbook script. As conditions change, the Deputy tracks what’s happening, surfaces bottlenecks, and nudges toward a plan adjustment with the Commander’s guidance.

A few traits that make a great Deputy

• Reliability and trust: You need someone who follows through and can be counted on to keep updated on tasks and progress, even when the room gets loud and busy.

• Clear communication: The Deputy translates what the Commander decides into actionable steps and communicates them crisply to the team.

• Situational awareness: It helps to see the forest and the trees—recognizing how a small change in one area can ripple through others.

• Calm under pressure: Incidents are stressful. A Deputy who stays steady helps the team stay coordinated and focused.

• Proactive collaboration: This role thrives on anticipating needs—picking up tasks before they’re demanded and offering help before it’s requested.

If you’re on a PagerDuty-enabled incident response team, here are some practical ways to empower the Deputy role

• Align on a shared task board: Use a centralized place where the Commander and Deputy can see what’s in progress, who’s responsible, and what’s next. That visibility stops miscommunications before they start.

• Define handoffs clearly: When responsibility shifts from one task to another, the handoff should be explicit. The Deputy can own the transition notes to keep everyone aligned.

• Establish a quick cadence for updates: Short, regular updates help the Commander stay informed without getting bogged down in details. The Deputy can own these briefings, filtering noise and surfacing what matters.

• Integrate with alerting and runbooks: PagerDuty shines when runbooks are tied to alerts. The Deputy can ensure runbooks are followed and that any deviations are flagged quickly to the Commander.

• Practice role clarity in drills: Incident drills aren’t just about testing tech. They’re about practicing roles and handoffs. A Deputy who’s practiced the workflow will perform more smoothly when the real thing hits.

A quick scenario to anchor this in reality

Imagine a service hosting platform that suddenly spikes in user traffic, causing latency and error responses. The Incident Commander identifies the incident’s top priority: restore user experience while preserving data integrity. The Deputy steps in to translate that priority into action: they assemble and assign tasks—redistribute load, check database health, validate cache behavior, update dashboards, and communicate status to stakeholders. Meanwhile, the Commander analyzes risk, decides if a partial rollback is viable, and communicates the plan to leadership. The Deputy tracks each action item, flags any blockers, and ensures the incident plan stays on track. If a bottleneck appears in the database layer, the Deputy surfaces it quickly, enabling the Commander to reallocate resources or adjust the plan. The result isn’t a chaotic scramble; it’s a coordinated effort with clear ownership and transparent progress.

Small shifts, big impact

The Deputy role isn’t glamorous in a Hollywood sense, but it’s the anchor that holds a response together. When teams rely on a calm, capable partner to steward tasks and progress, the whole incident response becomes more resilient. You gain a workflow that’s repeatable, predictable, and able to bend without breaking when new information lands.

If you’re building or refining a PagerDuty-driven incident program, think of the Deputy as the code that keeps your system resilient under pressure. It’s the connective tissue between strategy and execution, the friend who makes sure the plan doesn’t drift, and the quiet force that lets the Incident Commander keep their eye on the horizon while the team handles the moving parts.

More than a role, a rhythm

In the end, the Deputy’s main job is to support the Incident Commander to manage tasks. That partnership is what keeps responses coherent when the pressure is high, when decisions must be quick, and when every second counts. It’s a practical, indispensable dynamic that brings clarity to ambiguity and momentum to action.

If you’re part of a team that depends on PagerDuty to coordinate responses, cultivate the Deputy role with intention. Give them visibility, give them a voice in planning, and give them the tools to keep track of what’s being done and what remains. With that balance, your incident response becomes less a scramble and more a well-orchestrated operation—responsive, reliable, and ready to recover.

And yes, in case you’re curious about the mechanics behind the scenes: the Deputy’s work complements the strategic leadership of the Incident Commander, and together they form the backbone of a robust incident response. It’s a partnership built on trust, clear communication, and a shared commitment to restoring service with minimal disruption. That’s the heart of effective incident management—and a hallmark of mature PagerDuty-enabled teams.