Whiteboard PromptsBlameless post-incident review on Claude Whiteboards
Rebuild the timeline from logs, add what people knew at each point, group contributing factors, run 5 whys on the main one and leave with up to seven owned follow-ups.
Use it when: Within five working days of a Sev 1 or Sev 2 incident, with the incident lead, on-call responders and an owner of each affected service, 4 to 8 people.
Post-incident review
What you type here fills every prompt below and stays in this browser.
- 0′Lay out the board
- 3′Build the timeline from the logs
- 11′Add what people knew
- 19′Collect contributing factors
- 29′Run 5 whys on the main factor
- 41′Note what went well and where we got lucky
- 46′Write the follow-ups
- 56′Write the review doc
Agenda, 60 minutes. Click a time to jump to its step.
Before the meeting
- Pull the raw events before the meeting: pager alerts, deploy log lines and incident-channel messages, all with timestamps. Note which timezone each source uses. Claude only sees what is on the board, so they have to be pasted as text.
- Remove customer emails, card data, tokens and internal hostnames from the paste. Everyone invited to the board sees every line, including outside people such as a vendor's engineer.
- Ask the incident lead to confirm the impact numbers in writing beforehand, so the meeting does not spend its first ten minutes on them.
- 0–3 min
Lay out the board
Run this before people join. Read the ground-rule note aloud as the first thing in the meeting.
Start a whiteboard for a blameless post-incident review of Brightcart INC-2291: the checkout API returned 502 errors in the EU region on 4 November. Across the top, add a title and two sticky notes: "Impact: 47 minutes, about 3,100 failed orders, EU customers only" and "Ground rule: we look for what in our systems made this possible, not for who made a mistake. Everyone acted on what they knew at the time." Below, add a wide horizontal section called "Timeline (UTC)". Under it, side by side, add three sections: "Contributing factors", "5 whys", "Went well / Got lucky". At the bottom, add a section called "Follow-ups" laid out as a table with the columns ID, Action, Type, Linked to, Owner, Due. Leave everything empty.
Board after this stepTitle, impact and ground-rule notes, an empty timeline strip, three empty sections and an empty follow-up table.
Steps 2 to 8 are in the workshop kit
You have the setup prompt and the full agenda. The kit adds the other 7 prompts of this post-incident review, what to do while Claude works on each one, and 3 follow-up prompts: Follow-up tracker sheet, Stakeholder update, Board image for the ticket. The same for all 12 workshops, plus the 40-prompt library.
One payment, no subscription. Opens in this browser as soon as Stripe checkout completes.- 3–11 min
Build the timeline from the logs
In the kitPut each of these events on "Timeline (UTC)" in time order, one sticky note per event, with the UTC time at the start of the note …
Board after this stepFifteen to forty colored events in order, with detection, mitigation and total duration shown underneath.
- 11–19 min
Add what people knew
In the kitAdd what I'm about to say as grey sticky notes directly under the timeline note at [time] …
Board after this stepGrey Knew and Expected notes under the key actions, and purple question notes in the gaps for the room to answer or carry forward.
- 19–29 min
Collect contributing factors
In the kitGroup the notes in "Contributing factors" into these categories, with a labeled box for each and the note count in the label …
Board after this stepFactors grouped into six categories, linked to the timeline where the link is clear, with no person named as a cause.
- 29–41 min
Run 5 whys on the main factor
In the kitLook only at this factor …
Board after this stepA chain of whys in the team's words, ending at a red Fix here box.
- 41–46 min
Note what went well and where we got lucky
In the kitAdd the following as sticky notes in "Went well / Got lucky", keeping my wording …
Board after this stepGreen notes for what worked, yellow lucky notes tied to the timeline.
- 46–56 min
Write the follow-ups
In the kitFill the "Follow-ups" table from the board …
Board after this stepUp to seven follow-ups, each typed, linked to a note on the board, with one owner and a due date.
- 56–60 min
Write the review doc
In the kitTurn this board into a post-incident review doc with these sections in order …
Board after this stepThe board stays as the record; the review doc goes to the ticket and the team.
After the meeting
Follow-up tracker sheet
In the kitCreate a sheet from the "Follow-ups" table on this board with the columns ID, Action, Type, Linked to, Owner, Due, Ticket, Status …
Stakeholder update
In the kitWrite a status update for non-engineering stakeholders about Brightcart INC-2291 …
Board image for the ticket
In the kitBefore I export this board as a PNG for the incident ticket, tidy it …
What goes wrong on Claude Whiteboards
- Claude fills holes to make a timeline look complete. Keep "Don't add any event that is not in what I paste" in the timeline prompt, and keep Claude's gap suggestions as purple question notes, so nobody mistakes a guess for a logged event in the final doc.
- 2 more pitfalls for this workshop are in the kit
Board layout
A board with a UTC timeline colored by event type, what responders knew at each action, contributing factors grouped by category, a 5 whys chain ending at a fixable cause, and a follow-up table capped at seven rows with owners. Plus a review doc in a standard postmortem format.
Agenda at a glance
| Minutes | Step | What the board shows afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| 0–3 | Lay out the board | Title, impact and ground-rule notes, an empty timeline strip, three empty sections and an empty follow-up table. |
| 3–11 | Build the timeline from the logs | Fifteen to forty colored events in order, with detection, mitigation and total duration shown underneath. |
| 11–19 | Add what people knew | Grey Knew and Expected notes under the key actions, and purple question notes in the gaps for the room to answer or carry forward. |
| 19–29 | Collect contributing factors | Factors grouped into six categories, linked to the timeline where the link is clear, with no person named as a cause. |
| 29–41 | Run 5 whys on the main factor | A chain of whys in the team's words, ending at a red Fix here box. |
| 41–46 | Note what went well and where we got lucky | Green notes for what worked, yellow lucky notes tied to the timeline. |
| 46–56 | Write the follow-ups | Up to seven follow-ups, each typed, linked to a note on the board, with one owner and a due date. |
| 56–60 | Write the review doc | The board stays as the record; the review doc goes to the ticket and the team. |
Run every workshop, not just the retro
Anthropic's help page gives three sample prompts. Free prompt packs give single prompts. The kit gives you the whole session: what to paste, in what order, how many minutes each step takes, what you do while Claude works and what the board should show before you move on.
| Free here | Workshop kit | |
|---|---|---|
| Sprint retrospective | The whole script | The whole script |
| The other 11 workshops | Agenda, board layout and the first prompt | Every prompt in order, with what you do at each step |
| Prompts that turn the board into a doc, deck, tracker sheet or Miro board | Retro only | For every workshop (40 in all) |
| Mistakes to avoid on Claude Whiteboards | One per workshop | All of them |
| Single-job prompt library | 10 prompts | All 40 |
| Copy, print or download a script | Retro only | All 12, plus the whole kit as one Markdown file |
$19one payment
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