PagerDuty Incident Responder: Anyone on the team can trigger a major incident response.

Who should be able to trigger the incident response process for a major incident?

Anyone. That’s the core idea PagerDuty leans into when it comes to handling major incidents. Not “a few chosen leaders,” not “top brass,” but a broader, more inclusive approach that treats triggering as a shared responsibility. The moment a serious issue pops up, the clock starts ticking, and the sooner a disruption is noticed and acted upon, the easier it is to contain it, minimize impact, and move toward resolution.

Let me explain why this matters in the real world.

The case for openness: faster, cleaner responses

Think about a late-night outage in a product you use every day. If only a handful of people can trigger an incident, you’re banking on someone waking up, noticing the alert, and deciding to wake up others in a perfectly choreographed chain. It’s not impossible, but it’s brittle. Delays creep in. The issue can fester while the right person is still unreachable.

Opening the trigger to anyone mirrors how teams actually work. People see something off, they speak up, and the system kicks into motion. It’s not about everyone acting as the incident commander from square one; it’s about removing unnecessary bottlenecks so the right people are engaged quickly. When the first spark can set off the response, you’re much more likely to contain the incident before it expands beyond control.

A quick mental model you can lean on: the building fire alarm

In many buildings, you don’t wait for a single fire marshal to notice every problem. If someone smells smoke or hears a crackle, they pull the alarm. Then trained responders and building personnel handle the rest. The trigger is simple, obvious, and universal. That same principle applies to incident response: give people a clear path to raise the alarm, and let trained responders take over from there.

What this looks like in practice with PagerDuty

PagerDuty isn’t asking you to throw away structure or discipline. It’s about layering accessibility on top of a solid process.

• Triggering channel: Anyone can initiate the incident in a controlled way. The trigger is a gateway to the response, not a free-for-all chaos moment.

• Context matters: When someone triggers, they should include what they’re seeing, where it’s happening, and any immediate steps they’ve already tried. A concise, useful trigger speeds up triage.

• On-call orchestration: The trigger lands in the on-call rotation and automatically surfaces the right people. It’s not chaos; it’s a guided cascade toward a fix.

• Incident Commander role: The IC still matters. They coordinate response, keep stakeholders informed, and anchor the playbooks. Triggering helps get the right folks into the room faster, but leadership and coordination come next.

Guardrails that keep the system healthy

Inclusivity doesn’t mean chaos. It means accountability with clear guardrails.

• Training and clarity: Everyone should understand how to trigger, what information to include, and what to do after triggering. A short, practical runbook or quick-reference guide helps.

• Runbooks and playbooks: Have ready-to-follow steps for common major incidents. The trigger should swiftly surface the right runbook so responders don’t waste time wondering what to do.

• Audit trails: Every trigger is logged. If something goes wrong or you need to review what happened, you can trace who triggered, when, and why, plus what actions followed.

• Escalation policies: Triggering doesn’t erase escalation rules. If the initial responders can’t make progress, the system should smoothly bring in the next tier without creating idle time.

• Safety against noise: If triggers become too frequent or careless, you can tune thresholds, add sanity checks, or require a brief summary to flag potential false positives. It’s about keeping urgency real, not turning the system into a fire drill every hour.

A few practical tips to set this up well

• Choose the right trigger points: Most teams use a mix of monitoring alerts, status pages, and direct reports from teammates. Make sure these triggers are easy to access—often via a familiar tool like Slack, Windows/Mac desktop apps, or mobile notifications.

• Make it obvious how to trigger: A simple button in PagerDuty or a short-form Slack command works wonders. The path should be obvious, fast, and reliable.

• Tie triggers to meaningful context: A few fields that help a responder right away—service affected, severity, suspected impact, and any immediate mitigation you’ve tried.

• Align with on-call schedules: The incident should jump to the current on-call stack, then escalate if necessary. The goal is a fast-to-action flow, not a confusing maze.

• Practice, not perfection: Run regular, realistic simulations. They shouldn’t feel like a test, but an opportunity to tighten timing, terminology, and handoffs.

Real-world scenarios where anyone triggering pays off

• A prod issue at 2 a.m.: A frontline engineer notices a spike in error rates, triggers the incident, and the right people are engaged within minutes. The issue is contained before customers notice, and the postmortem reveals a simple configuration change as the root cause.

• A rogue alert that isn’t quite right: Someone reports an anomaly that looks suspicious but not dangerous. Triggering brings in the relevant responders, who verify the signal, discard the false positive, and learn from the near miss without delay.

• A cross-team incident: A dependency in another service fails, and the issue touches multiple product areas. With broad triggering, the teams rally quickly, share context, and coordinate an end-to-end fix rather than playing a blame game.

What not to do: avoid bottlenecks, not chaos

Sometimes openness can feel risky. The key is to couple broad access with disciplined practice.

• Don’t let triggering become a nuisance: If triggers flood teams, tighten the criteria and add quick pre-call filters. Shorten the path from trigger to incident with clear templates.

• Don’t rely on memory for critical steps: Documentation matters. Use checklists and runbooks, keep them accessible, and update after each incident.

• Don’t forget the people part: This approach scales only if teams buy into it. Encourage a culture where raising a concern is seen as responsible, not disruptive.

A mindset shift that pays off over time

Opening incident triggers to everyone sends a signal: you trust your team to act in the moment and to seek help when needed. It’s not about throwing risk to the wind; it’s about distributing power to the people closest to the problem. When someone on the front lines can say, “I see something off, I’m going to trigger,” you speed up recovery, you minimize impact, and you build resilience.

The human side matters as much as the technical one

There’s emotion in incident work. Frustration when something breaks. Relief when a fix lands. Anxiety about customer impact. A system that supports rapid, clear action helps keep those feelings in check, because the team knows what to do next. In practice, this means a calm, predictable process that people can lean on during stressful moments.

Bringing it together: make it part of the fabric

If you’re considering adopting this approach, start with a simple plan:

• Define who can trigger and how: A universal option across the team, with a straightforward trigger method.

• Establish a clear consequence pathway: What happens after triggering? Who’s notified, what information is required, and how does escalation work?

• Build concise runbooks: For the common major incidents you face, have a starter guide that responders can follow without hunting for documents.

• Practice together: Schedule light exercises to test the flow, not to test nerves. Make sure everyone understands their role and can perform their part under pressure.

• Review and improve: After every incident, run a quick debrief to capture what worked, what didn’t, and how to tighten the process.

Final thought: empowerment with structure

PagerDuty’s approach to enabling anyone to trigger a major-incident response isn’t about removing control. It’s about layering structure on top of empowerment. It’s about giving people the confidence to act the moment they notice something off, while still providing the guidance, oversight, and coordination needed to steer the ship back to calm waters.

If you’re looking to strengthen your incident readiness, start by clarifying triggers, fortifying runbooks, and normalizing a culture where timely action is not only allowed but expected when it matters most. The result isn’t just a faster fix; it’s a more resilient organization, ready to face whatever comes next with clarity, speed, and a shared sense of responsibility.