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Incident Response Postmortem & Communication Effectiveness Survey

Collects structured feedback from incident responders and stakeholders to evaluate response execution, communication quality, and accountability of follow-up actions. Use after any significant incident to identify process improvements.

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Sample questions

A preview of what’s in the template. Every question is editable before you launch.

22 questions · ~10 min
Q01
Message

Welcome to the Incident Postmortem Survey. This survey takes approximately 8–10 minutes and asks about your experience during a specific recent incident. Your responses are confidential, reported only in aggregate, and will be used to improve our response and communication processes. Participation is voluntary and you may stop at any time. There are no right or wrong answers—we value your honest perspective.

Q02
Multiple Choice

What was your primary role during this incident?

  • Incident commander
  • Technical responder
  • Communications/PR
  • Customer support
  • Leadership/Executive
  • Stakeholder or observer
Q03
Dropdown

Approximately how long did it take from detection to the start of a coordinated response?

  • Under 5 minutes
  • 5–15 minutes
  • 16–30 minutes
  • 31–60 minutes
  • 1–2 hours
  • More than 2 hours
  • I don't know
Q04
Opinion Scale

How would you rate the timeliness of communications during the incident?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Very poorMax:Excellent
Q05
Opinion Scale

How satisfied are you with the timeliness of the post-incident review?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Not at all satisfiedMax:Extremely satisfied
Q06
Multiple Choice

Which single change would most improve incident communications next time?

  • Clearer audience owners
  • Preset update cadence
  • Single source of truth
  • Fewer channels
  • More status detail
  • More executive summaries
  • Automated stakeholder lists
  • Other (please specify)
Q07
Long Text

Based on your responses in this survey, is there anything else you'd like to share about this incident or our response process?

Q08
Multiple Choice

Which department or group are you part of?

  • Engineering
  • SRE/Operations
  • Security
  • Support
  • Product/PM
  • Communications/PR
  • Leadership/Executive
  • Other
Q09
Message

Thank you for completing this survey. Your feedback directly informs our incident response improvements and will be reviewed by the postmortem team.

Q10
Dropdown

Which area was primarily impacted by this incident?

  • Customer-facing systems
  • Internal tools
  • Data/analytics
  • Infrastructure/network
  • Security
  • Compliance/regulatory
  • Other
Q11
Multiple Choice

Did the team follow a documented runbook during this incident?

  • Yes, fully followed
  • Partially followed
  • No, deviated from runbook
  • No runbook exists
Q12
Opinion Scale

How would you rate the clarity and accuracy of communications during the incident?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Very poorMax:Excellent
Q13
Opinion Scale

To what extent do you agree that action items from this incident were clearly defined with accountable owners?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Strongly disagreeMax:Strongly agree
Q14
AI Interview

We'd like to explore your experience a bit further. An AI moderator will ask a couple of follow-up questions about the incident response and communication. Please respond in your own words.

Q15
Dropdown

How many years of experience do you have with incident response?

  • Under 1 year
  • 1–2 years
  • 3–5 years
  • 6–10 years
  • 11+ years
Q16
Long Text

If applicable, what is the name or ID of the incident you are referencing?

Q17
Opinion Scale

Overall, how effective were the corrective actions taken during this incident?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Not at all effectiveMax:Extremely effective
Q18
Opinion Scale

How would you rate the frequency of stakeholder updates during this incident?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Far too infrequentMax:Far too frequent
Q19
Opinion Scale

How confident are you that the identified actions will prevent a similar incident within the next 6 months?

Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Not at all confidentMax:Very confident
Q20
Dropdown

Which region best describes your primary working time zone?

  • Americas
  • EMEA
  • APAC
  • Other/Multiple
Q21
Long Text

What were the top blockers or obstacles to achieving a faster resolution?

Q22
Ranking

Rank the following communication channels from most to least effective during this incident.

  1. Slack/Chat
  2. Email
  3. Incident tool/Timeline
  4. Video bridge
  5. Status page
  6. Phone/SMS
Drag to rank

What’s included

  • AI follow-ups

    Adaptive probes on open-ended answers that pull out detail a static form would miss.

  • Attention checks

    Built-in safeguards against rushed answers and low-quality respondents.

  • AI-drafted copy

    Wording, ordering, and branching written by the AI — tuned to your research goal.

  • Auto report

    Themes, quotes, and a plain-English summary write themselves once responses come in.

How it compares

We reviewed the closest templates from other survey tools. Here’s what they do well — and where this template goes further.

Why this template

  • Combines structured incident-execution questions (role, impacted area, detection-to-coordination timeline, runbook adherence) with dedicated ratings for communication timeliness, clarity, and update frequency
  • Includes a ranking question comparing communication channel effectiveness and opinion-scale items on action-item clarity and confidence in preventing recurrence
  • Uses an AI follow-up interview to probe open-ended answers about blockers and improvement ideas rather than leaving them as static free-text
  • Closes with reflective open-text and segmentation questions (department, experience level, time zone) so QuestionPunk's auto-generated report can break down findings by stakeholder group

SurveyMonkey

Incident Report Form Template

This is a general-purpose incident report form for logging basic details of an event (what happened, when, who was involved) rather than a structured postmortem instrument. It's fielding-ready out of the box and benefits from SurveyMonkey's broader analytics and distribution tools, but it doesn't specifically address communication-quality assessment or follow-up accountability. Best suited as an initial incident intake form rather than a post-incident retrospective.

What it does well

  • Fielding-ready template usable immediately without customization
  • Backed by SurveyMonkey's established survey infrastructure and reporting dashboards
  • Customizable question set for basic incident logging

Where it falls short

  • Static question set with no adaptive AI follow-up probing on open-ended answers
  • No structured multi-dimensional rating of communication timeliness, clarity, and frequency
  • No published methodology or transparent prompt logic behind question design

Ready to launch?

Open this template in the editor. Every part is yours to change before the first respondent sees it.

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