On COO Insider: When to Halt Work During an Operations Incident
COO Insider published my take on how operations leaders should decide when to stop work during an incident, and when stopping costs more than continuing.
COO Insider published my answer on how to decide when to halt work during an operations incident, as part of an expert roundup with operations leaders.
My position is that “stop everything” is a decision with a cost, and most organisations only price one side of it. Halting is correct when continuing would make the blast radius larger, destroy evidence you need for the root cause, or put people or data at risk. It is the wrong reflex when the incident is contained and the real motivation is discomfort rather than risk – because every unnecessary halt trains the organisation to treat the stop signal as noise, and the one time it matters, nobody moves.
The practical version: decide the halt criteria before the incident, in writing, while nobody is under pressure. During the incident the only question should be whether the criteria are met, not whether the criteria are right.
