Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 — Incident Response for Small Teams
Small teams don't have SOC on demand. Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 is an Incident Response System (process + people + playbooks) so your ops lead can handle the first 30 minutes while engineering responds.
The Problem
You're a founder, an office manager, or the one IT person for 1-50 people. Something breaks. Not the database — something bigger.
A critical service goes down. Customer accounts are affected. Stakeholders are asking "what's going on?" and you don't have a documented answer.
This is the moment where 57% of teams guess, improvise, and hope. Guessing "it's probably a network issue" isn't an incident response plan. It's how encrypted backups get destroyed.
What Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 Actually Is
Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 isn't another runbook PDF you'll never open. It's an Incident Response System for small teams:
Process: Documented workflow for containment, eradication, and recovery
People: Clear roles, responsibilities, and escalation paths
Playbooks: Actionable templates for the most common incidents
Templates: Incident logs, severity matrices, comms scripts
The First 30 Minutes — Your Window of Criticality
The first 30 minutes are when everything matters:
What's happening? Document your observations, log the incident immediately. This is your insurance for vendor calls, insurance claims, and post-mortems.
What do we disconnect first? Containment beats eradication. Know in advance which machines come offline, who authorizes it, and which shared data you freeze first.
Who says what, to whom? Your team needs one-line "what to do right now" messaging. Customers wait for facts; your team acts immediately.
What You Get in Ops Starter Kit Vol 2
Incident Response System:
- 3-question workflow for rapid response
- Incident log template with severity scoring
- Containment checklist with pre-approved actions
8 Playbooks:
- Ransomware response
- Data breach containment
- Service outage recovery
- Database corruption
- Cloud account compromise
- Network disruption
- Application failure
- Security vulnerability exploitation
5 Templates:
- Incident log template
- Severity matrix (money/data stuck vs workaround vs who hears next hour)
- Comms templates for different audiences
- Post-mortem framework
- Recovery checklist
Why This Works for 5-30 Person Teams
Large organizations have dedicated security teams, threat intelligence feeds, and automated detection systems. Small teams don't.
Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 replaces all of this with something better: human judgment, documented process, and reusable templates.
Process before tools. You can't automate chaos. Document your response workflow first.
Templates everywhere. Don't write from scratch. Use templates for logs, severity calls, comms, and post-mortems.
Focus on containment. Speed beats perfection. Your first priority is stopping the bleeding.
The Free First 30 Minutes Checklist
Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 comes with a free one-page quick-start checklist for the first 30 minutes of any incident:
- [ ] What are the three critical questions?
- [ ] Document observations immediately
- [ ] Identify containment actions
- [ ] Assign communications responsibilities
- [ ] Establish severity call
- [ ] Initiate recovery process
This checklist alone can save you from disaster. The full Ops Starter Kit Vol 2 includes all the templates, playbooks, and processes you need for sustained incident response.
How to Use Ops Starter Kit Vol 2
Step 1: Download the free checklist. Use it during the first 30 minutes of any incident.
Step 2: Build your incident response system. Adapt the templates to your environment. Document your workflow. Create your playbooks.
Step 3: Test your system. Run through the playbooks with your team to ensure everyone knows their role when something breaks.
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