# Whose fault was it anyway? On blameless post-mortems

DevFeed: [Whose fault was it anyway? On blameless post-mortems](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/whose-fault-was-it-anyway-on-blameless-post-mortems-11688.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://incident.io/blog/blameless-post-mortems>)

Author: incident.io

Published: 2023-10-04T19:54:46Z

Content type: article

Language: en

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

Topics: [Post Mortem](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/post-mortem.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>), [incident management](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident-management.md>), [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>)

Tags: [analysis](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/analysis.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>), [learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/learning.md>), [management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/management.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [post](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post.md>), [post-mortem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post-mortem.md>), [production](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/production.md>), [root-cause-analysis](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/root-cause-analysis.md>), [safety](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/safety.md>), [slack-incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack-incident.md>)

## AI overview

The article examines blameless post-mortems, arguing that incident analysis should avoid scapegoating while still preserving accountability and enabling meaningful learning. It discusses psychological safety, the limits of focusing on a single root cause, and the risk that AI-generated summaries may remove human accountability entirely.

## Source excerpt

While blameless post-mortems are a great idea on the surface, if taken to the extreme, they can muddy how much you actually learn from incidents.