Runbooks

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What it is

Runbooks are step by step procedures for tasks you do repeatedly, such as responding to a type of incident, onboarding a user, or performing a maintenance routine. You write them once as templates, then run an execution and tick off each step, with the whole run linked to the ticket you are working on.

How to use them

  1. Create a runbook template made up of ordered steps. Templates capture your team's agreed way of doing something so it is done the same way every time.
  2. On a ticket, start an execution from a template.
  3. Work through the steps in order, recording a result against each one. The execution stays attached to the ticket, so there is a clear record of exactly what was carried out.

Why they help

Runbooks turn knowledge that lives in one person's head into a shared, repeatable procedure. New team members can follow them confidently, and the per step record is useful for audit and for handovers.