You're facing a critical network outage. How can you effectively update stakeholders under time pressure?

My mantra in network outages is always assume it could be you- your work, your change request, your team, your company. Never start with: this couldn’t be that. Or, it’s clearly the other guy. Think, could it be? Because then you’ve got blinders on and your ego engages and you defend rather than investigating with an open mind.

First, there needs to be an immediate situation assessment, identifying the situation and impact of this outage, hence have enough understanding to the situation and event dimension, hence start communicating with stakeholders and brief the plan and relevant actions, in parallel, start the implementation of prioritizing the actions and services restoration attached, keep periodic sync between all key stakeholders while progressing the matter while being agile and adapt to the progress outcomes, insuring all everyone is kept informed within his level and need, after service restoration and completeness, essential restoration and situation briefing is mandatory, prevention procedures for similar events needs to be considered and maintained.

1. Assess the Situation: Before communicating, ensure you have a clear understanding of the outage: what caused it, the current impact, and any initial steps taken to resolve it. 2. Identify Key Stakeholders: Determine who needs to be informed immediately. 3. Craft Your Message: Your communication should be clear, concise, and informative. 4. Choose Your Communication Channels: such as email, SMS or phone call etc. 5. Frequency of Updates: Establish a schedule for regular updates. 6. Be Transparent and Honest. 7. Document Everything: Keep records of all communications and updates sent. 8. Follow Up: Once the issue is resolved, send a final update confirming resolution.

First there is need to identify the type of problem at hand, network outage or a degradation caused by effects like bad weather, temperature or power fluctuations. If identified as a network outage, with the help of the monitoring tool or other tools made available. Immediately pass information to relevant stakeholders holders.

Access the impact, this means identifying the scope and potential impact of the outage. You need to gather information from your monitoring systems and team members to pinpoint the problem. Once the issue is being identified, you can have a clear understanding of the issue, you can communicate what happened, what's affected, what actions are being taken to mitigate it. Communication has to be concise and factual, it would always be appreciated.

Informing stakeholders are of two parts ie team to identify point of failure and impact of network outage and team to resolve as well as management. The first team to inform is the team to help identify the point of failure and impact of network outage. You are also part of this team. Then inform the team to resolve and restore network. After that you inform the management and those third party clients affected by the network. Step one and two mostly by phone call or WhatsApp, step three is mostly by email.

Depois de avaliar a situa??o, informe imediatamente as partes interessadas. Crie uma mensagem clara e concisa que descreva o status atual e as etapas que est?o sendo tomadas para resolver a interrup??o. A transparência é vital; reconhecer a interrup??o e quaisquer impactos conhecidos sem minimizar ou exagerar a gravidade. Use vários canais de comunica??o para garantir que a mensagem chegue rapidamente a todas as partes relevantes. Isso pode incluir e-mails, alertas por SMS ou uma página de status dedicada. Lembre-se de que atualiza??es consistentes s?o cruciais, mesmo que n?o haja novas informa??es para relatar.

I believe some actions described here should be already addressed in Risk Management plan. And the protocol just should be followed.

There is always an escalation matrix for this process. As stated above, identification team, resolution team then management team.

Most network outages have happened before or a similar case. Following already existing template saves a lot of time and reduces escalation anxiety.

There are some similar cases in different places where network outages occur, so having an existing template can save a lot of time. This is mostly used in Standard Operation Procedures.

There is always a back and forth between you, identification team, resolution team and management. Sometimes, there is need to inform resolution and management teams before identification team concludes their findings. A simple “cause of outage is under investigation “ will help a lot.

document the incident, write an email to all company or team members to share the incident resolution knowledge. share the incident and resolve mechanism on knowledge sharing directory of company.

After addressing the issue, document the incident, its findings, and solutions, write an email report to company members and supervisors then share the knowledge with your teams, gather feedback from stakeholders, and review them to adapt with better communication and technical response for future incidents.

The Action Plan should be clear. Outline the steps being taken to resolve the issue. Include details about the technical teams involved and any external support being leveraged. Secondly, it's very important to have the Impact Assessment done. Communicate the potential or actual impact on services, customers, and business operations. Provide information on any mitigations in place to reduce impact.