A postmortem that doesn't produce owned, tracked follow-up actions is just a story. This template forces the structure that turns an incident review into actual prevention: a real timeline, an honest root cause (not just the trigger), and specific actions with names and dates attached.
Free Template
Free Postmortem Template
A blameless postmortem structure covering timeline, impact, root cause, and concrete follow-up actions with owners.
01
Postmortem template
Fill in after the incident is resolved and things have calmed down.
- Summary: [one paragraph, what happened and impact]
- Timeline: [detected, escalated, mitigated, resolved — with timestamps]
- Root cause: [the actual underlying cause, from a 5-whys pass, not just the trigger]
- What went well / what didn't
- Action items: [action] — [owner] — [due date]
02
Turn action items into an updated runbook
If the postmortem reveals a gap in your incident response, record the fixed process with Guidyy and link it from the action item — the fix isn't done until the runbook reflects it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?+
Yes.
What does 'blameless' mean in practice?+
Focus the writeup on process and system gaps, not individual mistakes — the goal is preventing recurrence, not assigning fault.
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