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Process Metrics Assessment |
Metrics Design No ITIL® or ITSM project is worth doing if you cannot measure its progress, prove its positive impact on the organization and set into action a series of continuous improvement actions based upon data collected specific to process. The only way to do this is to design metrics that reward the right behaviors or discipline the wrong ones and that capture end state or extra-process activity (what the process produces) as well as efficiency or intra-process activity (how well the process does what it is supposed to do).  It Starts with CSFs
The key to ensuring the optimal set of process-specific metrics, organizations need to first ensure they have well-documented CSF (critical success factors). CSFs are developed at the executive level and are intended to capture progress against strategic objectives promulgated at the launch of an ITIL-based Service Improvement Program (SIP). From these CSFs, each process owner can develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that provide an indication of how the CSFs will be realized within their domain. And finally, from these KPIs, metrics should logically flow. The reality is, however, that this chain of causality is typically missing, or at least, not well documented in many ITIL implementations. This is precisely where and why TDG get involved. As part of our fixed price, Metrics Assessment engagement, we will analyze the current state of your metrics program, compare it to process design, SIP guidance, and other artifacts of strategy, and look for the opportunities to improve metric design, metric applicability, and metric collectability. We will unearth those metrics that are poorly designed, or worse, detrimental, and validate those that are well-aligned. Next, we help organizations realize that invariably the metrics they are currently conducting to track progress on process improvement are ill-suited to the task -- usually they are relics from systems-based metrics design, a wholly different discipline and approach. Finally, we will recommend specific changes to be made and teach you how to develop metrics in the future, as all good metrics are, by their very nature, variable -- they need to be updated and eventually deleted as progress to a defined goal should lead to re-goaling to ensure continuous improvement. Achieving Process Metrics Re-Alignment
We accomplish this type of metric realignment in three ways:
Ensure all metrics adhere to the SMART guidelines (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely). Use the Goal-Qualification-Metrics (GQM) as a technique to reduce each metric to something that has business as well as technical applicability and reflects top-down guidance. Click here for a better understanding of the science behind the GQM approach. Providing the means to tie metrics to decision-making so that the output generated causes action to be taken - Conducting Metrics Development workshops to give clients the tools, techniques, and hands-on experience in creating process-specific metrics using GQM.
The last aspect of metrics adoption is the inclusion of benchmarking information. ITIL® and ITSM implementations are not yet at the point where such peer group data can be exploited but that time is coming and you should be ready. Contact us to find out how to bring clarity, vision, and success to your ITIL-based measurement efforts. |
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