This study is proposes a sensitivity analysis for improvement of transient response of time history data. For improvement of vibration characteristics of structures it is necessary to find the appropriate location where the structural modification is needed, i.e., mass or stiffness modification. The sensitivity analysis is one of the effective approaches to find out the modification location, However it has been conducted only in the frequency domain. To improve the transient response it is impossible to directly apply the frequency-domain sensitivity analysis. In this study, a sensitivity analysis for the transient response is presented, and the validity of the method is examined through experimental application.