“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts” –attributed to Albert Einstein. Einstein, however, was never noted as an ITSM practitioner …

How do you begin to measure the value of an IT service to the business? Just as a business is ever-changing in response to its customers, market conditions, opportunities, etc., the measures applied to valuating the enabling IT services, are fluid. For simplicity, let’s frame it in the context of meeting SLA’s – the handshake between the business and IT around the definition of services and the standards against which delivery is measured.

So … where to start? While customer satisfaction is extremely important as a leading indicator, unless you’re measuring your delivery on an ongoing basis, the business might already be in the market for another service provider.  As Brad Taylor once said, “Providing exemplary levels of customer service is the most important thing we deliver every single day,” … A heavy responsibility for Service Managers who must not only keep delivery in line with expected service levels, but also align the changing needs of the business with the content, quality and cost of IT services.

But establishing KPI’s and collecting performance/quality metrics are only part of the equation. It’s what you do with the data, that’s important. Process owners must use it to drive compliance with policies and standards while implementing incremental efficiencies until the service is retired from the catalogue. Most importantly, they must have the clout to influence the (re-)definition of workflows and performance goals, based on analysis of their data.  There is no single set of measures for productivity / efficiency / satisfaction – ultimately, those who are accountable (and they must be accountable) for delivery of the services need to be enabled by timely access to the data they deem important to keeping their finger on the pulse.  

I suppose I shouldn’t dismiss Einstein’s statement out of hand; perhaps it could be modified to read, “Count what counts”. 

Glyn Thomas

Director, Projects