Incident Business Impact Checklist
Purpose: Classify incident severity by business impact, not just technical severity. Use the 90-second impact call to assign the right response resource.
Quick Impact Call — 90 Seconds
1. Revenue Impact
- ☐ Is revenue blocked or significantly reduced?
- Yes → P1 (Critical): Revenue lost per minute calculated, executive notified within 15 minutes. - No → Continue.
- ☐ Is billing/payment system down?
- Yes → P1 (Critical): Payment gateway status checked, finance notified. - No → Continue.
2. Data Impact
- ☐ Is customer data breached, exposed, or deleted?
- Yes → P1 (Critical): Data breach response playbook triggered, legal/compliance notified. - No → Continue.
- ☐ Is user data corrupted or partially inaccessible?
- Yes → P2 (High): Restore from backup attempted, affected users notified. - No → Continue.
3. Customer Trust Impact
- ☐ Is customer trust visibly damaged (customer-facing messaging required)?
- Yes → P2 (High): Customer comms plan triggered. - No → Continue.
- ☐ Are major customers threatening churn or legal action?
- Yes → P2 (High): Account manager notified, retention resources allocated.
4. Compliance Impact
- ☐ Is regulatory reporting deadline at risk?
- Yes → P2 (High): Compliance officer notified, deadlines re-evaluated. - No → Continue.
- ☐ Is audit access or logs at risk?
- Yes → P2 (High): Audit trail preserved, forensic analysis considered.
5. Brand Impact
- ☐ Is the incident publicly visible or likely to become public?
- Yes → P2 (High): PR/social media protocols activated. - No → Continue.
- ☐ Is internal culture affected (team morale, burnout)?
- Yes → P3 (Medium): Team lead notified, burnout risk assessed.
Impact Tier Mapping
| Tier | Business Impact | Example Scenarios | Response SLA |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Revenue loss > $X/min or data breach | Payment gateway down, data breach, core service unavailable | 15 min notification, 30 min first update |
| P2 | Significant customer trust/compliance impact | Data partial loss, compliance deadline risk, major customer churn threat | 30 min notification, 1 hour first update |
| P3 | Moderate brand/operational impact | Feature unavailable to some customers, minor compliance gap | 1 hour notification, 2 hours first update |
| P4 | Minor operational inconvenience | Non-critical service degradation, documentation issue | 4 hours notification, next business day update |
Documentation Fields
- ☐ Impact Date/Time: _______________
- ☐ Estimated Revenue Loss: $_______/min
- ☐ Customers Affected: _______________
- ☐ Publicly Visible: Yes / No
- ☐ Regulatory Requirement Triggered: Yes / No
- ☐ Triage Category: Revenue / Data / Trust / Compliance / Brand
Usage: Use after the 60-second severity call. Document impact to align resources and communication cadence. Use the _template.html for structured form logging.
Product links: /l/ops-starter-kit-vol-2 | /l/ops-starter-kit | /l/automation-starter-pack
From the HIVE80lab kit
- The First 30 Minutes — free incident quick-start
- Ops Starter Kit — full incident-response kit for small teams — $14
- Ops Mega Bundle — all 5 kits in one download — $29
- Small-Team Ops Audit — prioritized findings + fix plan, five-day turnaround — $149
- Custom Incident Runbook — done-for-you, built from your estate, 48h — $249
Part of the five-pillar incident-response set: see the pillars overview and the blameless post-incident review template.