Cycle time

What is cycle time? 

Cycle time is a performance metric measuring the time it takes from one incident milestone to the next. Some companies track cycle time to evaluate the health of their incident response efforts. 

Cycle time is calculated by breaking the incident management process into standardized phases and milestones, then measuring the time it takes for teams to move from one milestone to the next. For example, you could measure the cycle time between when an incident is first declared and when an investigation officially started or the cycle time between the start of an investigation and incident mitigation.

You can learn a lot about your entire incident management process by tracking the cycle time between each milestone.

Why is cycle time important? 

Measuring cycle time is one way to evaluate your program and prove its efficacy to stakeholders. Milestones allow you to use data from past incidents to find inefficiencies in your process. Inefficiencies can lead to a longer time to resolution, frustrated customers, and employee burnout.

Knowing the time it takes to get from one stage to the next can help you zero in on ambiguity or inefficiency. If cycle time is unusually high for one step of your process, that might indicate a lack of clarity around responsibilities or an inefficient process. 

For example, if your cycle is longer than you like, looking at the time spent between milestones can help you pinpoint where you could be more efficient.  So if your average time to move from "investigating" to "identified" seems longer than necessary, it might be time to consider adopting better tools or delegating responsibilities differently.

What are cycle time best practices? 

When measuring cycle time, there are a few things to remember:

• Start tracking cycle time as soon as you are able. This will help you create a baseline of data to improve on. 

• Improving cycle time is not a race to the bottom. While quicker may seem better, you actually want to find a happy medium to eliminate inefficiencies while still giving people enough time to do quality work.

• Cycle time/milestone duration is not a metric to look at in isolation. Milestones should help improve systems and not be used to call out specific teams' performance.

• Improving cycle time is a continuous process. Periodically re-evaluate your cycle time metrics to catch any growing problems. 

What tools can help measure cycle time? 

To accurately measure cycle time, you must first clearly define the phases and milestones of your incident management process. Then, you can start tracking the time it takes to move between those phases.

Time tracking doesn’t have to be complicated. You can use your phone, existing time management apps, or incident management tools like FireHydrant.