A metric can be described as a measure for
assessing the performance of a process, in our case IT services. Gauging the
performance of IT services requires defining a set of metrics to have assurance
that the services are performing as expected and also to measure the
performance against industry standards. Setting the correct IT metrics is vital
for enabling a reliable and efficient performance measurement. Depending upon
the type of business and relevance, the IT metrics to be used may vary. For
example, in case of a helpdesk or support service, some relevant metrics may be
number of requests closed within the first call, average resolution time per
request and such Other metrics such as customer satisfaction
which are relevant in almost all types of business are difficult to measure
directly. These can be measured in terms of supporting metrics. Let’s say the
SLA mentions that the service provider must resolve all severity level 1
requests within 5 business hours. Over a period of 6 months, let’s say 8 such
requests were encountered and the resolution time of each is less than 4 hours.
This translates to requests being resolved well within the terms mentioned in
the SLA which then will lead to the customers / end users being satisfied that
critical issues are taken on priority by the service provider and resolved as
soon as possible. Now this might be just one metric and generally there will be
several such metrics – which cumulatively determine the level of customer
satisfaction.
The goal of IT metrics should be specific. For a
service provider, any metric directly or indirectly having an impact on the
level of customer satisfaction is critical. These should be identified and
included as a part of monitoring and measuring activities. It's also useful to keep
abreast on how companies in a similar industry perform by the given IT metrics
to get an idea of how well the competition is doing. There is a huge market for
companies providing the relevant guidance and support required to a business to
identify what its set of critical IT metrics should be, what should be the
thresholds set to and assisting the business in measuring related performances.
Chasing irrelevant metrics and unreasonable thresholds is like going on a wild
goose chase that will ultimately result in spending a lot of time, resources,
money and effort on measuring something that is not going to result in any
benefits to the business.
Some useful IT metrics can be described as below:
- Number of big / error fixes requested for a particular (critical, financial) application, this can be an indication of how the application is functioning / overall health of the application.
- Percentage of tickets resolved within a particular month when compared to total number of tickets received (helpdesk functions)
- Average resolution time per ticket
- System / Application uptime
The main function of an IT metric is to measure
IT's value to the business; to measure how well IT is contributing to the
overall business objectives. For CIOs and CFOs alike, this is very important
since an annual budget would be reserved for IT initiatives and if IT is not
delivering what is expected, there needs to be an explanation as to where IT is
falling behind and why.
Therefore, the importance of well defined and
measurable IT metrics cannot be under-stressed. It is important for business
and IT to sit together and form a team that can identify these metrics relevant
for their specific objectives rather than blindly apply industry best practices
which may ultimately lead to a catastrophic failure.
About Author:
Mohini Bhandari is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at mohini.b@spluspl.com
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