Every engineering org wants to learn from incidents. Very few actually do.
The problem is not intent. The problem is history. Your past incident records are scattered across Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, email threads, and random Slack messages. Each one uses a different format. Some have timelines. Some have action items. Some are just a few bullet points and a sigh of relief.
It looks like chaos. But there is gold buried in that mess. You can build a Learning Center that brings order, structure and long term memory to all of it.
The first step is to pull together every scrap of postmortem and incident data that exists. Do not worry about quality or format at this stage. The goal is simple: get it all in one place.
Sources include:
Expect it to be ugly. That is fine. You cannot fix what you cannot see.
The mess becomes manageable when you create structure. Normalization means giving every incident the same basic set of fields, regardless of how incomplete the original was.
For each incident, try to capture:
You will find gaps. Mark them as unknown rather than guessing.
Once incidents have a consistent structure, tag them. Tags turn a pile of documents into something you can analyze.
Useful tags include:
Classification makes it possible to see which kinds of problems are common and which parts of your system or process are fragile.
Now the fun part. Once everything is normalized and tagged, you can start to see patterns.
Ask yourself:
Patterns reveal systemic weaknesses that are easy to miss when incidents are isolated.
A Learning Center is not a static archive. It is a feedback loop.
Every new incident adds to the dataset. Patterns evolve over time. Lessons get reinforced. When you see a recurring theme, you can turn it into training, process improvements, or automated safeguards.
The value compounds as the system grows.
Many teams hesitate to start because their old postmortems are messy. That is the point. If you can normalize a mess, you have built a foundation that will make the future cleaner.
You do not need perfect records to start learning. You just need a structured way to process the imperfect ones.
Doing all of this by hand is tedious. Modern tools like COEhub can ingest historical data, normalize it automatically, detect patterns, and feed a Learning Center without manual effort.
Instead of drowning in a sea of disconnected docs, you end up with a living system that gets smarter every time something goes wrong.
Every incident contains a lesson. If your lessons are scattered across a wiki, you will keep paying the same tuition.
Organize your history. Normalize it. Learn from it. That is how you build resilience.
If you want a faster way to start, explore tools that can help turn chaos into a continuous learning system.
Check out COEhub to see how it can transform your messy incident history into a clear Learning Center.