First-time-right (FTR) is the share of finished work that gets accepted without being sent back. If your team hands in 100 things and 65 are accepted as-is, your FTR is 65%. Count it for a month. It tells you more about your team's week than hours ever will.
Why most quality numbers fail
Teams try to measure quality with scores. Rate this report 1 to 5. Give this design a grade. Scores are slow, they feel personal, and two reviewers never agree.
First-time-right asks one yes-or-no question about each piece of work. Was it accepted without changes? Yes or no. Anyone can answer it. Nobody feels graded. And the number means something real: every "no" is a redo, and every redo is time.
How to count it
- Decide what counts as a "piece of work." A task, a ticket, a deliverable. Keep it simple.
- For one month, every time a piece is finished, mark it accepted or sent back.
- FTR = accepted ÷ total.
That is the whole method. A tally sheet works. A column in your task tool works. Our first-time-right calculator does the division and shows the trend if you enter a few weeks.
What the number tells you
- Below 50%: More than half of everything is done twice. Your week is mostly rework. Look at briefs first. Here is why.
- 50 to 75%: Normal for teams that have never looked at this. Lots of room.
- 75 to 90%: Good. Now look at which work comes back. It is probably one type.
- Above 90%: Either excellent, or your reviewers are waving things through. Check a sample.
What the number does not tell you
FTR says whether work was accepted. It does not say whether the work was great, or whether the bar was high enough. A team can hit 95% with a reviewer who never says no. Use FTR with your eyes open, not instead of them.
It is also not a score for a person. Use it for the team, and for types of work. The moment it becomes "Sam's FTR is 60%," people start hiding sent-backs, and the number goes bad.
A worked example
A support team of eight counted for four weeks.
| Week | Finished | Accepted | FTR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 71 | 44 | 62% |
| 2 | 68 | 43 | 63% |
| 3 | 74 | 52 | 70% |
| 4 | 70 | 55 | 79% |
Between week 2 and week 3, they did one thing: every macro and every customer-facing article got a two-line brief, and the writer ran it through a check before marking it done. Nothing else changed. FTR went up 17 points in two weeks.
How to raise it
The two biggest levers are almost always the same.
- Clearer requests. Five parts: what, who, must include, must not, due and approver. Task brief builder.
- A check before the handoff. Not a review by you. A check by them, against the request. Work Check.
Do both for a month and watch the number.
Where M-Tracker fits
M-Tracker makes first-time-right happen instead of just measuring it. When someone marks a task done, M-Tracker reads the work against the brief and shows them what is missing. They fix it before anyone else sees it. More work arrives right the first time, and managers can see the pattern across the team without scoring anyone.
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