Mean Time To Detect (MTTD)

Definition

Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) measures the average time it takes to identify incidents, failures, or abnormal behavior after they begin.

Why it Matters

Lower MTTD helps teams:

• Reduce outage impact duration.
• Accelerate incident response quality.
• Improve reliability outcomes across services.

How to Use It

• Instrument critical systems with actionable alerts.
• Reduce noisy alerts and improve signal-to-noise ratio.
• Pair MTTD with restoration metrics for full incident visibility.

Learn More

• Next metric: Time To Restore Service
• Supporting capability: Observability