When Everything Breaks: Leading Major Incidents with Clarity, Speed, and Trust

When crucial systems fail, the real challenge isn’t just technical—it’s leadership, coordination, and communication under pressure. Major incidents are high-impact, high-urgency events that disrupt institutional operations and demand rapid, disciplined response. This session presents a practical field-tested approach to Major Incident Management in higher education. Participants will learn how to identify and declare major incidents, stand up an effective Incident Management Team, and lead through dynamic, fast-changing situations where impact evolves by the hour. Beyond process, this session emphasizes what matters most in the moment: protecting technical teams so they can restore service, maintaining a single source of truth, communicating clearly across diverse audiences, and building trust through reliable updates and visible leadership. We will walk through the full life cycle, from detection and resolution to root cause analysis, while sharing real-world practices such as role clarity, communication strategies, escalation decisions, and managing concurrent incidents. Attendees will leave with actionable frameworks, practical tools, and leadership techniques they can immediately apply to strengthen resilience and reduce chaos during their next major outage.