About this tool
Mean Time to Repair or Restore is a common operations metric for how long incidents remain unresolved. The mean is useful for overall workload impact, while the median helps show the typical incident without letting a few very long outages dominate the number.
This calculator accepts a list of incident durations in minutes and returns mean, median, minimum and maximum. Looking at all four values gives a better operational picture than a single average.
How to use it
- Enter one incident duration in minutes per line or separate values with commas.
- Calculate.
- Compare mean and median, then review the maximum to identify long-running outliers that may deserve a problem-management follow-up.
Example: 15, 48, 55, 72, 130 minutes
The median is 55 minutes because it is the middle value after sorting. The mean is higher because the 130-minute incident pulls the average upward.
Engineering notes
- Define the clock consistently before comparing teams or periods. Some organizations measure from detection to restore; others measure from ticket creation to resolution.
- Segment MTTR by priority, service type or cause when possible. A single combined number can hide important operational differences.
Frequently asked questions
Is median MTTR better than mean MTTR?
Neither is universally better. Median describes the typical case, while mean reflects the total time burden and is more sensitive to extreme incidents.
Should planned maintenance be included?
Usually not in an incident MTTR metric unless your organization explicitly defines it that way.
Can MTTR improve while incident volume increases?
Yes. Volume and restoration speed measure different things and should be reviewed together.