In recent years, on-call engineering has become more daunting due to operational and execution-related issues rather than purely technical problems. While it's easy to focus on traditional metrics like Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA), SLA compliance or severity, these metrics alone aren't enough to truly improve your on-call performance. To enhance efficiency and optimize incident resolution, it's essential to focus beyond the standard process —the hidden drivers that impact how your on-call teams perform day-to-day.
Let's dive into some of the key operational metrics that can make a significant difference in improving your on-call process:
1. Noisy Alerts
Definition: This metric tracks the proportion of alerts that are genuinely actionable versus those that are non-actionable or caused by factors like monitoring misconfigurations, redundant alerts, or external fluctuations (such as traffic spikes or environmental factors).
Why It Matters: Noisy alerts overwhelm your team with non-critical notifications, leading to alert fatigue and wasted time spent investigating false alarms. When your engineers are constantly responding to irrelevant alerts, it diminishes their ability to focus on real issues, potentially slowing down response times to incidents that truly matter.
2. Runbook Not Updated Issues
Definition: This metric measures how often your runbooks are outdated or missing important information. A runbook is a crucial resource that guides engineers through troubleshooting steps and incident resolution processes.
Why It Matters: An outdated runbook can create confusion during an incident, leading to longer resolution times and mistakes. If the documentation doesn't reflect recent changes to the system or the latest troubleshooting strategies, engineers may struggle to find the right solutions. Keeping runbooks updated ensures that your team can work efficiently, reducing errors and accelerating incident resolution.
3. Lack of Follow-ups
Definition: This metric measures how often incidents are not followed up on or addressed after the initial investigation. It highlights situations where issues are left unresolved or not revisited for resolution.
Why It Matters: When incidents are not followed up, they can reoccur, potentially causing larger system outages or degradation. Without thorough follow-ups, issues may linger unresolved, leading to service interruptions or prolonged downtime. Ensuring that every incident gets proper follow-up helps to fully resolve problems and prevent recurrence, ultimately improving system reliability.
4. Shift Handover Efficiency
Definition: This metric evaluates how well information is passed from one on-call engineer to another during shift changes. It focuses on the completeness and clarity of the handover process, ensuring that no critical information is missed.
Why It Matters: Efficient handovers are essential for maintaining continuity during incident resolution. If key information about the current state of incidents, previous actions, or pending tasks is missed during shift changes, it can lead to confusion and delays. Clear, well-documented handovers ensure that incoming engineers can seamlessly pick up where the last team left off, improving collaboration and reducing resolution time.
5. Alert Fatigue
Definition: This metric tracks the percentage of on-call engineers who are unable to respond effectively due to being overwhelmed by a high volume of alerts or repetitive incidents.
Why It Matters: Alert fatigue is a major contributor to slower response times, increased likelihood of missing critical incidents, and burnout among on-call engineers. When engineers are bombarded with too many alerts, they become desensitized to them, making it harder for them to differentiate between important and unimportant issues. This fatigue can lead to burnout and decreased performance, which in turn harms team morale and affects overall incident resolution effectiveness.
With over 15 years of experience working in fast-paced engineering organizations with demanding on-call practices, we've observed that teams who focus on these operational metrics experience a significant improvement in their on-call efficiency. So when we were building Next9, we equality focussed on providing operational metrics along with traditional metrics to our users. To truly improve your on-call performance, you need to move beyond traditional incident metrics and focus on the key insights that directly impact how your team handles incidents. Insights like noisy alerts, runbook updates, follow-ups, shift handover efficiency, and alert fatigue give you a much clearer picture of your team's daily challenges and performance. By addressing these operational issues, you can create a more streamlined, efficient, and responsive on-call process that not only resolves incidents faster but also improves overall team morale and reduces burnout.
So, are you ready to optimize your on-call process? Start by tracking these operational metrics and make data-driven decisions to enhance your team’s performance. The results will speak for themselves—better response times, fewer disruptions, and more reliable systems. Let us know if you have found any other non-traditional operational metrics which helped you improve your on-call!
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