Effective learning from incidents is only possible if the incidents are well understood

Adaptive Capacity Labs is offering a 6-week Incident Analysis workshop series in early 2026. The workshops are designed for experienced practitioners looking to build the foundational skills necessary to get the most value from incidents.

We draw on real cases in which participants learn critical analytic and investigational skills in a hands-on, learning-by-doing experience.

Structure & Topics

Each week, participants attend two online workshops. Workshops consist of lectures, exercises, and group discussion. This structure is designed to minimize burden on the participants’ time and attention.

Participants from any organization are welcome, but are expected to have experience both handling incidents and participating in or leading post-incident activities.

Topics include:

• Our approach for iterative incident analysis that yields the richest possible understanding for the broadest possible audience.
• Case selection: what incidents warrant analysis?
• Recognizing important decisions, actions, and junctures during and immediately after an incident.
• Incident Mechanisms, Contributing, Enabling, and Necessary Factors
• Debriefing and interviewing techniques 
• Write-ups, Artifacts, and Visual Representations
• What makes an analysis credible?
• What does good review meeting facilitation look like?
• What are signals that the organization is making progress in learning from incidents more effectively?

Incidents in modern software-driven businesses present opportunities that are much greater than is typically recognized. Developing effective countermeasures, preventative designs, and other improvements require understanding an incident in deeper ways than simply when it occurred, how long it lasted, and what the customer impact was. This deeper understanding comes from reconstructing the event(s) in the context they were in, exploring the multiple perspectives of those who are responsible for responding to the incident and those defending the organization from these types of events, and connecting them in ways that have lasting influence on the business.

“Learning from Incidents” does not come from filling out a template and plotting shallow data on a chart. It means developing and maintaining the expertise to know how to analyze incidents deeply, identify which elements of the event are most valuable and which are not, and synthesizing this in ways that provide the greatest insight for the broadest audience possible.

Most importantly, it means doing this analyses efficiently, because businesses cannot wait for a dissertation to be published every time an outage happens.

We will train you to do this.

Cost & Logistics

• Fee
  • The cost for RISF members is $2,500 per person (regular fee is $5,000)
  • Payment due upon acceptance into the workshop
• Dates
  • (still TBA)
• 18 total hours of sessions
• Attendance capped at 20 total participants, with a minimum of 10
• Workshops are held under the Chatham House Rule, expecting that participants not reveal the identity of individuals or organizations outside the workshop.

How to Apply

If you’re interested in attending, start by completing a brief application. We’ll consider participants’ time zones and other constraints as we decide on the exact days and times of workshops, so applicants who are accepted will be able to verify that the workshop series schedule works for them before finalizing registration.