Intro to Retrospectives

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Beta:

You're viewing documentation for beta features. These features may change functionality or be removed before the final release. You may also have to reach out to our Support team to get access to these features.

FireHydrant's retrospectives feature helps teams facilitate better incident reviews with a flexible template system, collaborative editing, and integrated incident data. From customizable questions to contributing factors analysis, retrospectives make it easier to learn from incidents and prevent future occurrences.

Features at a Glance

📋 Retrospective Templates

Create and manage multiple templates to standardize your post-incident review process across different types of incidents or teams.

🖇️ Attaching Templates

Attach a single or multiple templates to an incident either automatically via runbooks or manually from the retrospective view, giving you full flexibility in how you document and learn from incidents.

📊 Incident Data

Access all relevant incident information directly within your retrospective, including timeline, contributing factors, and related metrics.

👥 Collaborative Editing

Enterprise customers will be able to work together in real-time with multi-user simultaneous editing capabilities for all text-entry questions.

📤 Sharing and Export

Share retrospectives with stakeholders through PDF exports, Google Docs, Confluence, or direct links, ensuring everyone stays informed about incident learnings.

Key Components

Templates

Templates are the foundation of FireHydrant's retrospective system. They allow you to:

• Define custom sets of questions for different incidents
• Include specific incident data sections
• Attach templates automatically through runbooks or manually

Retrospective Question Set

Contributing Factors

Track and analyze the root causes of incidents:

• Add multiple contributing factors to each retrospective
• Categorize and track patterns across incidents
• Use insights to prevent future occurrences

Customizable questions

Capture valuable insights with customizable questions:

• What went well?
• What could be improved?
• Create organization-specific questions
• Support for rich text editing

Getting Started

1. Access Retrospectives: Navigate to any incident, and click the retrospective view button in the top right corner
2. Choose Templates:
   • Set up automatic template assignment through runbooks
   • Manually select templates from the retrospective view
3. Collaborate: Work together with your team using the new collaborative editing features
4. Share: Export to PDF or share direct links with stakeholders

Best Practices

1. Template Strategy: Create specific templates for different incident types or severity levels
2. Required Fields: Mark critical questions as required to ensure comprehensive reviews
3. Contributing Factors: Add multiple factors to build a complete picture of incident causes
4. Collaborative Review: Use the real-time editing features to conduct retrospectives as a team
5. Timeline Integration: Reference the incident timeline while completing your retrospective

Important Notes

• Templates are fixed once applied to an incident
• Questions cannot be added ad-hoc to an active retrospective
• Your existing retrospective configuration will be preserved in the default template

Looking Ahead

We're continuously improving the retrospective experience. Stay tuned for additional features and enhancements to help you learn from incidents more effectively.

Have questions or suggestions? Reach out to us at [email protected].