Runbook

Enable consistent and prompt responses to well understood events by documenting procedures in runbooks. Runbooks are the predefined procedures to achieve a specific outcome. Runbooks should contain the minimum information necessary to successfully perform the procedure. Start with a valid effective manual process, implement it in code and trigger automated execution where appropriate. This ensures consistency, speeds responses, and reduces errors caused by manual processes.

For example, the procedure to update static web site content might include staging the content in an uploaded content location, updating the web site to reference the new content, validating the display of the new content, and removing replaced content. The runbook might include steps to take if the new content does not display correctly. For example, roll back to prior content and notify the content team of the failure.

Related

Runbook development

Runbooks provide adequately skilled team members, who are unfamiliar with procedures or the workload, the instructions necessary to successfully complete an activity. Capturing runbooks preserves the institutional knowledge of your organization. It eases the burden on key personnel by sharing their knowledge and enabling more team members to achieve the same outcomes.

Building runbooks

What to include in runbooks

Convert runbooks to code

Revise runbooks as appropriate