timetoresolve

Timetoresolve is a metric used in incident management, IT operations, and customer support to measure the duration between the start of an incident and its resolution. It captures the total time taken to contain, investigate, fix, and restore services to normal operation. In practice, the start time can be defined as incident detection, occurrence, or when the incident is reported, while the end time is when the incident is declared resolved or service is restored. The unit is typically minutes or hours, and organizations often track an average value across incidents, sometimes using a median to reduce the impact of outliers.

Purpose and use: Timetoresolve helps teams assess efficiency and responsiveness in handling incidents. It informs service level agreements and service level objectives, supports capacity planning, and guides post-incident reviews. By analyzing timetoresolve, teams can identify bottlenecks, gauge the effectiveness of runbooks and automation, and measure improvements over time.

Factors and variation: Several factors influence timetoresolve, including incident severity, complexity, on-call practices, automation level, quality of runbooks, escalation policies, tool integration, and team availability. Differences in start and end definitions across teams can affect comparability, so clear, consistent methodology is essential.

Measurement and benchmarking: Data are collected from incident management systems. Organizations commonly report mean time to resolution (MTTR) and sometimes median timetoresolve, broken down by severity, service, or category. Dashboards and regular post-incident reviews help maintain visibility and drive continuous improvement.

Related metrics: Mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to acknowledge (MTTA), mean time to repair, and time to recover. Limitations include variability in definitions and data quality, so timetoresolve is best used alongside other performance indicators.