Time to Resolution
The average time to resolution was eleven days, which alarmed the director, who had assumed the desk fixed things in a day or two. The desk did fix things in a day or two. It had also had one ticket open for two hundred and six days, waiting for a supplier who had stopped answering. One ticket is all an average needs. The median, which nobody had calculated, was nineteen hours. Both numbers were true. One of them described the desk and the other described a supplier. The report had chosen the wrong one, because averages are what spreadsheets offer first.
This series is about choosing the right one. It covers what time to resolution actually measures, including where the clock starts and what it does during the weekend. It covers medians and percentiles instead of averages, with a worked example of twenty tickets. It covers cuts by category and priority, because the desk-wide number hides everything. Then comes outlier analysis: reading the ten slowest tickets every month and finding that most of them were waiting for someone. It covers the tension between speed and quality and the metrics that referee it. And it covers improving resolution time without rushing anyone, which mostly means removing the waiting. The average is for the director who asked quickly. The median and the tail are for the desk that wants to improve.
Articles in This Series
- What Time to Resolution Actually Measures
Clock start and stop, business hours, time spent waiting, the difference from response time, resolved versus closed, and the definition card. - Median and Percentiles, Not Averages: Reading Resolution Time
Why the average lies, the median, the 90th percentile, a worked example with twenty tickets, the spreadsheet formula in plain words, and the percentile worksheet. - Resolution Time by Category and Priority: The Cuts That Matter
The cuts that mean something, the table, the category that drags the whole number, reading the cut before changing anything, and the cut table. - Outlier Analysis: Reading the Ten Slowest Tickets Every Month
The ten slowest tickets every month, the four causes, the fix for each, the outlier that is a process problem, and the outlier review sheet. - Speed Versus Quality: The Tension and the Pairing
Fast and wrong, the reopen as the check, satisfaction as the check, the target that produces rushing, and the pairing check. - Improving Resolution Time Without Rushing Anyone
Remove the waiting, knowledge at hand, permissions, escalation paths that work, one change a month and the measurement after, and the improvement plan.
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This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.