# Declare early, declare often: why you shouldn't hesitate to raise an incident

DevFeed: [Declare early, declare often: why you shouldn't hesitate to raise an incident](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/declare-early-declare-often-why-you-shouldn-t-hesitate-to-raise-an-incident-11752.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://incident.io/blog/declare-early-declare-often>)

Author: Isaac Seymour

Published: 2022-06-06T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The incident.io Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-incident-io-blog.md>)

Topics: [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>), [Incident response](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident-response.md>), [Slack](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/slack.md>)

Tags: [article](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/article.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident.md>), [incident-channel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-channel.md>), [incident-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-management.md>), [incident-response](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-response.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [post-mortem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post-mortem.md>), [slack](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack.md>), [slack-incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack-incident.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that teams should declare incidents early and often, even when an issue seems minor or raising an incident feels intimidating. Early declaration enables a proportional response, helps teams address customer impact and prevent recurrence, and supports learning and organizational health. A lack of incidents may indicate excessive risk avoidance or hidden problems.

## Source excerpt

Declaring your first incident can be intimidating. Let's look at some common fears about the incident response lifecycle and work out how to address them.