Call Etiquette

You've just joined an incident call and you've never been on one before. You have no idea what's going on or what you're supposed to be doing. This page will help you through your first time on an incident call, and will provide a reference for future calls you may be a part of.

First Steps#

Lingo#

Use clear terminology, and avoid using acronyms or abbreviations during a call. Clear and accurate communication is more important than quick communication.

Communication

Standard radio voice procedure does not need to be followed on calls. However, you should familiarize yourself with the terms, as you may hear them on a call (or need to use them yourself). The ones in more active use on major incident calls are,

Do not invent new abbreviations, and always favor being explicit rather than implicit. It is better to make things clearer than to try and save time by abbreviating, only to have a misunderstanding because others didn't know the abbreviation.

The Commander#

The Incident Commander (IC) is the leader of the incident response process and is responsible for bringing the incident to resolution. They will announce themselves at the start of the call and will generally be doing most of the talking.

Problems?#

There's no incident commander on the call! I don't know what to do!#

Ask on the call if an IC is present. If you have no response, type !ic page in Slack. This will page the primary and backup IC to the call.

I can join the call or Slack, but not both, what should I do?#

You're welcome to join only one of the channels, however you should not actively participate in the incident response if so as it causes disjointed communication. Liaise with someone who is both in Slack and on the call to provide any input you may have so that they can raise it.