Free Book Here!
And an opportunity to support an amazing cause
Thank you for stopping by to read The Common Reality. Every Sunday, I drop a new article on Engineering Management, AI in the workplace, or navigating the corporate world. Engagement with these articles helps me out quite a bit, so if you enjoy what I wrote, please consider liking, commenting, or sharing.
I want you to be great at incident management.
So much so that I'm thrilled to announce the release of my new book1, "It Will Go Down: A Field Manual for Technical Incident Management." After months of writing and editing, the manual is finally ready. Most importantly, I want to share it with you for free.
Incident management can be chaotic. We’ve all been on support calls that feel, at best, random. Stress levels are high. Someone always has a child crying in the background. And the pressure is on to “just get it fixed.” I want to offer a better way - so I am!
Whether you're an engineer, an engineering manager, or someone who finds themselves frequently in the trenches responding to outages, this manual is designed for you. It's structured to give you clear, actionable guidance on:
How to prepare effectively before an incident.
Managing the critical first 30 minutes of an outage.
Communication best practices with executives, stakeholders, and your team.
Staying focused under pressure.
Navigating red herrings, theories, and side quests.
Effective escalation strategies.
Building actionable dashboards and alarms.
Conducting post-incident reviews that drive meaningful improvements.
I've decided to make "It Will Go Down" available to everyone, for free, until August 3rd, 2025. My objective is to share insights that have helped me and my teams become more resilient and effective. I genuinely hope they'll help you too.
Why August 3rd, 2025?
I’m glad you’re curious!
The first weekend in August is the Pan-Mass Challenge, a 186-mile bike event that raises money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Last year, we raised $75 million, pushing the charity over $1 billion in total donations. As a rider, my personal goal is to raise $15,000 this year.
So here is my ask: Will you consider making a donation to my ride? 100% of the funds donated go to Dana-Farber. Not to Executive salaries. Not to marketing budgets.
Donating is unnecessary if you can’t or the cause isn’t right for you. The manual is free to all, regardless.
You can download your free copy right here.
Once you read it
I'd love your feedback. Feel free to reach out with thoughts, suggestions, or stories from your own experiences in incident management. And if you find the book useful, please share it with others who might benefit!
For the curious, here is how the $75 million raised in 2024 is being used.
My use of the word “book” here may be a bit liberal. “Field Manual” is a better description, but no one knows what that is.