Traditional incident management often relies on a tiered support model—L1, L2, L3—where a ticket is passed from one team to the next. While this model offers structure, it also creates bottlenecks: response times lag, information is lost between handoffs, and critical issues are often slow to reach the right people. In today’s complex IT environments, this can lead to extended outages and frustrated customers.
To address this, the Prepare/Respond/Review Incident Management Framework encourages a more modern approach: incident swarming.
What Is Incident Swarming?
Swarming is a collaborative incident response model that eliminates queues and minimizes handoffs. Instead of routing tickets up a chain of escalation, the right people from across teams are pulled in immediately to swarm the problem.
This approach creates faster recovery times, increases shared understanding of the issue, and leads to quicker knowledge transfer among team members.
How Swarming Works
The swarming model flips the traditional tiered system on its head. Rather than funneling tickets through isolated support tiers, it builds a networked response team that activates immediately when a major incident occurs.
Here’s how it typically plays out:
- Triage groups are predefined for each product or service and include all relevant support roles.
- When an issue arises, all members of the triage group are alerted—no waiting, no escalation delays.
- Once the root cause becomes clearer, unnecessary team members are dismissed, keeping the response lean and focused.
For instance, if an application running on SQL Server experiences downtime, the triage group might include the Windows Admin, SQL DBA, Storage Admin, and the Application Ops team—all brought in at once to swarm the issue.
Types of Swarm Teams
Organizations often customize their swarming practices based on their environment and experience. Here are four common types of swarm teams:
- Severity 1 Swarm Team
A small, rotating team of three experts dedicated to tackling high-severity incidents. They handle a limited number of tickets but respond immediately with deep expertise. - Triage Swarm Team
This team includes all on-call members for every component of a given application or service. They’re paged together during incidents and stay engaged until the issue is isolated. - Local Dispatch Swarm
Focused on a specific product or app, these teams meet regularly—often every 60–90 minutes—to pick up and resolve tickets quickly. Any issues they can’t solve are escalated to the appropriate product-line teams. - Backlog Swarm
Made up of cross-functional experts, this team tackles unresolved or complex tickets that outlast the initial triage. They meet daily and focus on clearing the most challenging issues in the backlog.
Benefits of Swarming
When implemented thoughtfully, incident swarming can transform your support operations. Key advantages include:
- Faster resolution times (lower MTTR)
- Higher first-contact resolution rates
- Fewer escalations and reduced support costs
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Smaller incident backlogs
- Better knowledge sharing and team growth
- Stronger collaboration and shared ownership
- Shifts from individual heroics to high-performing teams
Final Thoughts
Swarming isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a strategic shift in how we manage incidents. Combined with the broader Prepare/Respond/Review framework, it equips teams to respond faster, smarter, and with greater impact.
Want to go deeper into this framework?
