Quick answer: Launch week is incident-dense. Set up a rotating IR team with named roles, a shared incident channel, and 24-hour coverage - the system that scales beyond one tired engineer.
Launch week incidents are a known unknown. The team that's prepared finishes the week with a better game and a healthier crew.
Three roles, two shifts
Incident commander, comms lead, technical responder. Two 12-hour shifts during peak week. Off-duty members are off; on-duty owns it.
Shared Slack channel
One channel for all incidents. Threaded per-incident. Status updates every 30 minutes. Everyone in the company can lurk.
Pre-written templates
Player-facing status posts, internal escalation pages, postmortem outlines. Write them before the launch; copy-paste during.
Daily standup
15 minutes. Yesterday's incidents, today's risks. Keeps the team coordinated; surfaces patterns before they compound.
“Incidents during launch are the rule. Preparation is the only differentiator.”
After launch week, run a retrospective on the IR system itself. The team's notes inform next year's launch playbook.