Incident Management Practical By Samson Tanimawo, PhD Published Jun 16, 2026 4 min read

MTTR Trend Analysis: What the Numbers Mean

MTTR going up is not always bad. The trend interpretation that prevents misreading reliability data.

MTTR going up

Could mean: incidents are harder. Or: small incidents are no longer counted, leaving only the hard ones.

Investigate the mix before interpreting.

MTTR going down

Could mean: faster response. Or: smaller incidents are dominating.

Look at total impact (MTTR × frequency × severity) for the real signal.

Per-class MTTR: same class over time is comparable.

Aggregate MTTR is misleading; class-level is honest.