Practice English vocabulary for incident metrics: MTTD, MTTR, incident frequency by severity, dashboards, and tracking customer-impacting minutes.
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What is 'MTTD (Mean Time to Detect)'?
MTTD measures how quickly issues are discovered. A long MTTD means problems exist unnoticed, causing more customer impact. Improving MTTD involves better monitoring, alerting thresholds, and on-call responsiveness.
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What is 'MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)'?
MTTR (sometimes called Mean Time to Resolve or Mean Time to Restore) measures how long it takes to fix incidents. Teams improve MTTR through runbooks, on-call training, better tooling, and faster communication processes.
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What does 'incident frequency by severity' track?
Tracking incident frequency by severity reveals trends. If SEV-1 incidents increase quarter-over-quarter, systemic reliability issues need attention. If SEV-3 frequency is high but SEV-1 is low, the team is catching problems early — which is positive.
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What does 'the incident dashboard tracks all open incidents' mean?
An incident dashboard provides a live, shared view of the operational situation. During peak periods with multiple simultaneous incidents, it helps incident commanders prioritize resources and prevents duplicate response efforts.
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What are 'customer-impacting minutes per quarter' as an incident metric?
Customer-impacting minutes (or downtime minutes) is a business-facing reliability metric: (incident duration) × (fraction of customers affected). It translates technical incidents into business impact and is often reported to leadership alongside SLO compliance.
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Sarah from Support just posted this comment on your PR: 'The spike in 'Error 500' incidents over the last hour is concerning. What does she likely mean when she asks for the MTTR?'
Sarah is using 'MTTR' (Mean Time To Repair) – a critical metric for incident response teams. It measures how quickly an issue is resolved, directly impacting service availability and customer satisfaction. Option A is too prescriptive; it's about the *measurement* of repair time, not immediate fixing.
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You're drafting a PR description for a recent outage. Which of the following best summarizes the impact using incident metrics language? 'We experienced a brief service interruption due to a database connection issue.'
This scenario tests understanding of 'customer-impacting minutes per quarter'. While the PR mentions the duration, framing it within this metric provides a more tangible measure of the *real* impact on users. Option A focuses solely on MTTR, neglecting the actual time users were affected; B is irrelevant to the description; and D misrepresents the situation.
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The API response from our monitoring system shows: `{"incident_frequency": 12, "severity_distribution": {"critical": 3, "major": 7, "minor": 2}, "mttd": 30}`. David asks you to explain the data in a Slack channel. What would be your most informative response?
David needs a clear breakdown of the metrics. Option A accurately translates the data – frequency, severity distribution, and MTTD. Options B and C misinterpret the response's meaning; D presents an overly optimistic interpretation based on incomplete information.
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During a standup meeting, Ben asks you about recent incidents. You respond: 'We had a significant increase in incident frequency this week.' What does Ben likely want to know next?'
'Significant increase in incident frequency' is a high-level observation. Ben needs to understand the *impact* of that increase. MTTR provides context – how quickly were issues being resolved? This allows him to assess the team's responsiveness and identify potential areas for improvement.
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You're reviewing a report showing that 'incident frequency by severity' has increased dramatically in the last quarter. What is this metric primarily designed to highlight?
'Incident frequency by severity' is a key indicator of service health. It focuses on *how often* serious issues (critical and major) are occurring – these directly impact availability and user experience. While other metrics provide valuable information, this one specifically tracks the most impactful incidents.
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Sarah from Support just posted this comment on your PR: 'The spike in 'Error 500' incidents over the last hour is concerning. What does she likely mean when she asks for the MTTR?'
Sarah is using 'MTTR' (Mean Time To Repair) – a critical metric for incident response teams. It measures how quickly an issue is resolved, directly impacting service availability and customer satisfaction. Option A is too prescriptive; it's about the *measurement* of repair time, not immediate fixing.
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You're drafting a PR description for a recent outage. Which of the following best summarizes the impact using incident metrics language? 'We experienced a brief service interruption due to a database connection issue.'
This scenario tests understanding of 'customer-impacting minutes per quarter'. While the PR mentions the duration, framing it within this metric provides a more tangible measure of the *real* impact on users. Option A focuses solely on MTTR, neglecting the actual time users were affected; B is irrelevant to the description; and D misrepresents the situation.
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The API response from our monitoring system shows: `{"incident_frequency": 12, "severity_distribution": {"critical": 3, "major": 7, "minor": 2}, "mttd": 30}`. David asks you to explain the data in a Slack channel. What would be your most informative response?
David needs a clear breakdown of the metrics. Option A accurately translates the data – frequency, severity distribution, and MTTD. Options B and C misinterpret the response's meaning; D presents an overly optimistic interpretation based on incomplete information.
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During a standup meeting, Ben asks you about recent incidents. You respond: 'We had a significant increase in incident frequency this week.' What does Ben likely want to know next?'
'Significant increase in incident frequency' is a high-level observation. Ben needs to understand the *impact* of that increase. MTTR provides context – how quickly were issues being resolved? This allows him to assess the team's responsiveness and identify potential areas for improvement.
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You're reviewing a report showing that 'incident frequency by severity' has increased dramatically in the last quarter. What is this metric primarily designed to highlight?
'Incident frequency by severity' is a key indicator of service health. It focuses on *how often* serious issues (critical and major) are occurring – these directly impact availability and user experience. While other metrics provide valuable information, this one specifically tracks the most impactful incidents.
What will I practise in "Incident Metrics Vocabulary"?
Practice English vocabulary for incident metrics: MTTD, MTTR, incident frequency by severity, dashboards, and tracking customer-impacting minutes.
How many exercises are in this module?
This module has 15 multiple-choice exercises, each with instant feedback and a full explanation of the correct answer.
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What happens if I choose the wrong answer?
You'll immediately see which answer was correct, plus a full explanation covering the vocabulary and reasoning behind it — mistakes are where most of the learning happens.
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Where can I find more Incident Command Language exercises?
Browse the full Incident Command Language hub for related drills, or check the "Next up" link below to continue with a connected topic.
How is this different from reading an article on the same topic?
Articles explain vocabulary and concepts in prose; this exercise tests and reinforces that vocabulary through active recall with immediate feedback — the two work best together.
Who writes these exercises?
Every exercise is written by the CoderSlingo team, drawing on real workplace English used in IT roles, then reviewed for accuracy and clarity.