From 20 Minutes to 5 Seconds
How an EdTech platform cut incident response setup from 20 minutes to 5 seconds and documentation from days to under an hour
The Checklist Problem
Your database is throwing errors. Students can't access their homework. Support is getting flooded with calls.
You know exactly what's wrong. You know exactly how to fix it.
But first, you have to:
- ☐Find the Confluence template for incident docs
- ☐Copy it to a new page
- ☐Create an incident channel in Slack
- ☐Invite stakeholders (who's on-call for infra again?)
- ☐Generate a Zoom bridge for the war room
- ☐Drop the link into... the channel? The doc? Both?
- ☐Start documenting the timeline by scrolling back through messages
- ☐Figure out severity, escalation path, notification requirements
Twenty minutes later, you can finally start fixing the actual problem.
And then, after you've resolved it, you get to spend days reconstructing what happened from Slack messages, writing the post-mortem, and hoping you didn't forget anything critical.
The Numbers
Here's how.
The Real Problem: Policies That Look Good in Binders
The incident response manual was 30 pages. It had flowcharts, escalation matrices, role definitions, communication templates. It looked impressive in the SOC 2 audit.
Nobody opened it during an actual incident.
What We Found
- ✗Responders creating infrastructure instead of fixing problems
- ✗20-30 minutes of setup before resolution could even start
- ✗Days of post-incident work manually reconstructing timelines
- ✗Information loss - critical details forgotten or scattered
- ✗Policies written for compliance, not for humans under pressure
- ✗No consistency - everyone improvising their own process
The brutal truth: When your incident response process is the second emergency people have to manage, you don't have a process — you have a problem.
The Shift: Unify, Don't Complicate
We realized the issue wasn't training or discipline. It was design.
✗ The Old Way
Incident → scramble to build infrastructure → manually track everything → hope you remember it all → spend days reconstructing
✓ The New Way
Incident → one command → infrastructure built → focus on fixing it
The key insight: If following the process is slower than not following it, people won't follow it.
Make the right thing the fast thing.
The Solution: One Command, Everything Automated
We built the Incident bot — a single Slack command that collapses the entire incident response workflow.
One command:
What happens in the next 5 seconds:
- 1Incident channel created - Structured, named, ready to use
- 2Stakeholders auto-invited - On-call rotation, managers, relevant teams
- 3Google Doc initialized - Pre-populated incident structure in Drive
- 4War room bridge generated - Zoom link dropped in channel
- 5Timeline started - Context pulled from Slack automatically
- 6Documentation live - Updates flow from Slack to doc in real-time
The responder's job: Verify the automation got it right, then focus on resolution.
The Story: What It Actually Looks Like
Before
Sarah gets paged. Database latency spiking. Students locked out of assignments.
She knows the fix — connection pool needs adjustment. But first:
- • Opens Confluence, searches for "incident template"
- • Copies it to a new page, starts filling fields
- • Creates #incident-2024-11-15-db in Slack
- • Manually invites... who's on-call for infra?
- • Starts a Zoom, copies link to Slack
- • Scrolls back through #engineering to find when this started
- • Pastes timestamps into the doc
18 minutes later, she makes the connection pool change. Crisis over.
Then: Three days of emailing people: "Hey, do you remember what you did around 2:34 PM on Friday?"
After
Sarah gets paged. Database latency spiking.
She types:
5 seconds later:
- • Channel exists
- • Team is already there
- • Doc is open
- • Bridge link is posted
She focuses on the fix. Makes the change. Latency drops.
Bot: "Incident resolved. Draft post-mortem ready for review. Timeline attached."
Post-mortem ships same day.
What Changed: Not Features, Removed Friction
You no longer have to:
- →Hunt for templates
- →Remember who to invite
- →Create channels manually
- →Generate bridges
- →Reconstruct timelines
- →Choose between fixing and documenting
The bot doesn't add steps. It removes them.
Auto-Generated Timelines
Before:
Scroll through 400 Slack messages. Copy timestamps. Paste into doc. Try to remember what happened when. Miss critical details.
After:
Bot analyzes conversation. Pulls relevant messages, timestamps, context. Responder just verifies accuracy.
Real-Time Documentation
Before:
'Hold on, let me stop fixing this and update the Confluence page...'
After:
Communicate in Slack. Doc updates itself. Documentation happens as you work, not after.
Simplified Policy
Before:
30 pages covering every scenario, every role, every edge case. Unreadable during a crisis.
After:
2-page quick reference. Plus: the bot is the policy. You can't misinterpret it — you just run the command.
Post-Mortem Automation
Before:
Schedule a meeting. Reconstruct the timeline. Argue about what happened when. Write the doc. Wait for reviews. Ship it a week later.
After:
Bot: 'Here's your draft post-mortem based on the incident timeline. Review and publish when ready.' Ships same day.
The Outcomes
| Metric | Before | After | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incident setup | 20-30 min | 5 sec | Start resolution immediately |
| Documentation time | Days | <1 hour | Post-mortems ship same day |
| Policy length | 30 pages | 2 pages | Actually gets read |
| Timeline accuracy | Manual, incomplete | Auto-generated, complete | Nothing forgotten |
Focus Shift
Before:
Responders created documentation infrastructure while trying to solve problems.
After:
Responders verify auto-generated info and focus on resolution.
Cognitive load: Minimal. Process: Invisible.
Cultural Impact
Before:
"We have an incident. Great. Now I have to do the incident response theater..."
After:
"We have an incident." → /incident start → Fixed.
Process is faster than not having a process. People actually use it.
The Compliance Surprise
By making incident response easier, we got better compliance.
Complete documentation for every incident:
- • Auto-generated timelines (nothing forgotten)
- • Structured post-mortems (template-driven)
- • Full audit trail (Slack + Google Drive + incident doc)
- • Consistent process (bot enforces it)
Auditor feedback:
"This is the most complete incident documentation I've seen. How do you get people to follow the process?"
Answer: We made following the process faster than skipping it.
The lesson: Compliance theater happens when the compliant path is the slow path. Make it the fast path, and compliance becomes the byproduct.
Why This Worked
Automation Over Process
We didn't write better policies. We automated the workflow so the policy didn't matter.
Unification Over Tools
We didn't add more tools. We unified everything into Slack with one command.
Verification Over Creation
Responders verify, not create. The bot does the administrative work.
Real-Time Over Reconstruction
Documentation happens during the incident, not days later when details are fuzzy.
Executable Over Theoretical
The policy isn't a binder. It's a command. You can't misinterpret /incident start.
Incident Response Doesn't Have to Fight You
When people skip your process, it's not because they're careless. It's because your process slows them down.
The solution isn't enforcement or training. It's design.
Make the right thing the fast thing.
At Asgard, we call this Security as Enabler. Incident response should make teams faster, not slower. Documentation should be automatic, not manual. Policies should be executable, not theoretical.
Details have been generalized to protect confidentiality. The approach, outcomes, and lessons are real.