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Writing the Operations Runbook

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • What a Discovery runbook contains
  • Daily and weekly checks
  • How to make it usable

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Hypercare. You learned how two weeks of hypercare settled Discovery.

1 The Problem: Knowledge Leaves With the Implementer

After handover, you leave. If what you know stays in your head:

  • Hana’s team won’t know what to check.
  • Small problems grow unnoticed.

🎯 The problem: Knowledge leaves with the implementer.

👉 The fix: Write a runbook that Hana’s team can follow without you.

Cards for daily, weekly and fix sections.
Figure 1. The SNWR Discovery runbook.

2 What goes in

  • Daily and weekly checks, with how to do each.
  • Common problems and fixes.
  • The emergency stop.
  • Who to call: Priya, Ravi, Kenji, Farah.
  • Where things live in ServiceNow.

3 Making it usable

  • Short steps, one action each.
  • Screenshots of real SNWR records.
  • Tested by someone who didn’t write it.

4 Project Clear View: How We Implemented It

📍 Situation: Handover was in week 12.

🧭 Decision: Write the runbook and have Hana’s team test it.

🛠️ Steps we took:

  1. Gathered notes from every chapter into one runbook.
  2. Wrote daily and weekly checks with screenshots.
  3. Added fixes, the emergency stop and contacts.
  4. A member of Hana’s team followed it without help.

✅ What we verified:

  • The tester completed every daily check alone.
  • Two unclear steps were rewritten.

📁 Evidence: The SNWR Discovery daily checks runbook.

5 Quick recap

  • A runbook keeps knowledge after you leave.
  • Include checks, fixes, the emergency stop and contacts.
  • Write short steps with real screenshots.
  • Have someone else test it.

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Name two daily checks. Show answer

Any two of: MID Servers up, schedules finished, new failures triaged.

2 Why test the runbook with someone else? Show answer

To make sure it works without you.

3 What’s in the weekly checks? Show answer

Duplicates, stale CIs and agents.

Nice work! SNWR has a Discovery runbook. 🎉
Next up: Discovery Dashboards and KPIs

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