Develop Meaningful Service Metrics
Reinforce service orientation in your IT organization by ensuring your IT metrics generate value-driven resource behavior.
Member Challenge
- IT organizations measure services from a technology perspective but rarely from a business goal or outcome perspective.
- Most organizations do a poor job of identifying and measuring service outcomes over the duration of a service’s lifecycle – never ensuring the services remain valuable and meet expected long-term ROI.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Service metrics are critical to ensuring alignment of IT service performance and business service value achievement.
- Service metrics reinforce positive business and end-user relationships by providing user-centric information that drives responsiveness and consistent service improvement.
- Poorly designed metrics drive unintended and unproductive behaviors that have negative impacts on IT and produce negative service outcomes.
Impact and Result
Effective service metrics will provide the following service gains:
- Confirm service performance and identify gaps.
- Drive service improvement to maximize service value.
- Validate performance improvements while quantifying and demonstrating business value.
- Ensure service reporting aligns with end-user experience.
- Achieve and confirm process and regulatory compliance.
Which will translate into the following relationship gains:
- Embed IT into business value achievement.
- Improve the relationship between the business and IT.
- Achieve higher customer satisfaction (happier end users receiving expected service, the business is able to identify how things are really performing).
- Reinforce desirable actions and behaviors from both IT and the business.
Research & Tools
| Name | Actions |
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1. Design the metrics
Identify the appropriate service metrics based on stakeholder needs.
| Name | Actions |
|---|---|
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Develop Meaningful Service Metrics – Phases 1-3
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Metrics Development Workbook
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2. Design reports and dashboards
Present the right metrics in the most interesting and stakeholder-centric way possible.
| Name | Actions |
|---|---|
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Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide
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3. Implement, track, and maintain
Run a pilot with a smaller sample of defined service metrics, then continuously validate your approach and make refinements to the processes.
| Name | Actions |
|---|---|
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Metrics Tracking Tool
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Onsite Workshop: Develop Meaningful Service Metrics
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Do-It-Yourself Implementation
The slides in this Best Practice Blueprint will walk you step-by-step through every phase of your project with supporting tools and templates ready for you to use.
Project Accelerator Workshop
You can also use this Best Practice Blueprint to facilitate your own project accelerator workshop within your organization using the workshop slides and facilitation instructions provided in the Appendix.
Module 1: Design the Metrics
The Purpose
- Define stakeholder needs for IT based on their success criteria and identify IT services that are tied to the delivery of business outcomes.
- Derive meaningful service metrics based on identified IT services and validate that metrics can be collected and measured.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Design meaningful service metrics from stakeholder needs.
- Validate that metrics can be collected and measured.
| Activities | Outputs |
|---|---|
| 1.1 Determine stakeholder needs, goals, and pain points. |
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| 1.2 Determine the success criteria and related IT services. |
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| 1.3 Derive the service metrics. |
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| 1.4 Validate the data collection process. |
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| 1.5 Validate metrics with stakeholders. |
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Module 2: Design Reports and Dashboards
The Purpose
- Determine the most appropriate presentation format based on stakeholder needs.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Ensure the metrics are presented in the most interesting and stakeholder-centric way possible to guarantee that they are read and used.
| Activities | Outputs |
|---|---|
| 2.1 Understand the different presentation options. |
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| 2.2 Assess stakeholder needs for information. |
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| 2.3 Select and design the metric report. |
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Module 3: Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics
The Purpose
- Run a pilot with a smaller sample of defined service metrics to validate your approach.
- Make refinements to the implementation and maintenance processes prior to activating all service metrics.
Key Benefits Achieved
- High user acceptance and usability of the metrics.
- Processes of identifying and presenting metrics are continuously validated and improved.
| Activities | Outputs |
|---|---|
| 3.1 Select the pilot metrics. |
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| 3.2 Gather data and set initial targets. |
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| 3.3 Generate the reports and validate with stakeholders. |
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| 3.4 Implement the service metrics program. |
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| 3.5 Track and maintain the metrics program. |
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Testimonials
Team learned about setting up outcome based Metrics and will be able to apply it to the daily operations.
Paul's insights and facilitation was invaluable.
No way to determine time or budget impact at this time. Too soon. Love the conversation and have good direction on where to start.
The level of real-world valuable insight Valence, the facilitator, brought to the workshop had great value for the team overall. After this workshop, we are more knowledgeable on Metrics, KPIs, and how to use these to show visibility and add value to ou...
Best: Adequate time to do the work. being able to afford the time to dig deeper into the KPIs. Executive review at the end. Good management of doing the workshop remotely (adjusting break times, etc.) Worst: great facilitation, but value added from th...
Valence was very knowledgable and helpful. I'm pleased with the level of service.
Best part: - The analyst used examples I'm familiar with (applications and databases, human body, etc.) so it was relatable and easier to understand.
Best: Tony gaining understanding and validating our experience and position in developing a metric model. Framing how we can start to use the metrics blueprint with our leadership team. Defining some next steps through guided implementation. Worst: N...