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Blameless Postmortem

A post-incident analysis that focuses on system and process failures rather than individual blame.

Blameless Postmortem

A post-incident analysis that focuses on system and process failures rather than individual blame.

"You Can't Fire Your Way to Reliability"

Blamelessness is the core cultural tenet of SRE. It assumes that everyone comes to work with good intentions. If they broke something, it's because the system allowed them to break it.

Blame vs. Accountability

  • Blame: "Dave is an idiot for pushing that button." (Outcome: Dave hides his mistakes next time).
  • Accountability: "Dave is responsible for helping us redesign the button so it is safer." (Outcome: The system improves).

The Cognitive Science

When people fear punishment, their prefrontal cortex (problem solving) shuts down. A blameless culture is safer and smarter.

ExThe Intern

"A new hire ran a test script in production, wiping customer data."

Impact
Major data loss incident.
Resolution
Instead of firing the intern, the CTO asked: "Why does an intern have write-access to production databases?" They restricted access and added a "Read-Only" mode for testing.

Why Blameless Postmortem Matters

Humans can't fix complex systems; only systems can fix systems. Blame creates fear and hides problems.

Blameless postmortems create psychological safety, which leads to faster incident resolution and honest reporting.

Common Pitfalls

Blame-ish Language
Avoid phrases like "Fred forgot to verify". Say "The verification process was skipped".

How to Use Blameless Postmortem

🎯
Ask "5 Whys": Dig to root cause, not symptoms.
🤝
No Names: Refer to roles, not individuals.
💡
Action Items: Prevent recurrence, not blame.

Related Terms

Post-Incident ReviewIncident ManagementRoot Cause Analysis

Frequently Asked Questions

Does blameless mean no consequences?
No. If someone is malicious or negligent, that is an HR issue. But 99% of incidents are honest mistakes in bad systems.

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