SESSION 607 Thursday, April 14, 2:45pm - 3:45pm

Track: Metrics and Measurements

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Service Desk Metrics

Gary Case Principal Consultant, Pink Elephant g.case@pinkelephant.com

Session Description One of the most critical and yet most challenging aspects of managing a service desk is properly defining, monitoring, measuring, and report on its performance. Having key metrics in place is important if you want to improve decision making and drive the correct behaviors. There are many potential metrics, but which are the most important to measure and report on? In this session, you’ll learn why it’s essential to have a cascading set of metrics that start at a balanced scorecard and move from critical success factors to the key performance indicators and, finally, to activity metrics. Speaker Background Gary Case is the co-author of ITIL® V3’s Continual Service Improvement core volume, and is an IT professional with more than 30 years of experience. As a Principal Consultant and ITIL Expert, Gary specializes in providing strategic guidance on Enterprise Governance, process consulting including Lean IT, business alignment, project management, and training to IT professionals across all industries. He also presents ITSM and ITIL-related sessions to audiences at major events worldwide.

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Service Desk Metrics

Gary Case

2

Agenda• Measuring process & types of Service Desk metrics

• Defining the difference between Service Process Measures and Service Performance Measures

• Building a Measurement Grid

• Defining the difference between Critical Success Factors (CSF’s), Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), and Activity Metrics

• Sample Service Desk Balance Score Card

• What Service Desk and process metrics drive positive behavior/negative behavior

3

The Measuring ProcessDefining what

you should

measure

Defining what

you can

measure

Gathering data

Processing data

Analyzing data

Presenting & using

information

Implementing

corrective action

Tactical

Goals

1 2

3

4

5

6

7

Relations? Trends?

According to plan?

Are targets met? Corrective action?

Who will collect?

How? When?

Integrity of data?

Frequency?

Format? System?

Accuracy?

Operational

Goals

Vision

& Strategy

Should include:

summary of

assessment, action

plans

3

Types of Service Desk Metrics

• Process – Incident Management, Request Fulfillment, Problem Management, etc.

• Telephony – Inbound, outbound, average speed of answer, average call duration, first time resolution, etc.

5

CSF vs. KPI vs. Activity Metric

• CSF – Critical Success Factor

Higher level measure

• KPI – Key Performance Indicator

A measurable quantity against which specific performance criteria can be set defining targets

• Activity MetricVery specific measure element of a process activity

6

What KPI’s Can Tell Us

• Getting the whole picture:

– Value: Is what we are doing making a difference?

– Quality: How well are we doing it?

– Performance: How fast or slow are we doing it?

– Compliance: Are we doing it?

A single measure may contain or cover more than one category. This in itself is not an issue, understand that

when this occurs the success criteria for this measure is more difficult to satisfy.

7

Building A Measurement Grid• Define the measure

• Determine the KPI category

• Establish the policy and target (target will change with process maturity)

• Determine the tool or medium to realize the measure

• Define the output format (graph, data, etc.)

• Define distribution list and report frequency

Category Measure Policy Target Tool

Value,

Quality

# of incidents

resolved outside of

SLA

All incidents to

be resolved

within SLA

90% of the time Incident

Module

8

Measurement Framework

Financial Customer

Innovation Internal

Improve Quality

Of Service

Improve

Management

Control

Employ New

Technology

Reduce Cost

Example

Goals

Process Measures

• Value

• Quality

• Performance

• Compliance

In order to understand

something you must

look at it more then

one way

Balanced Score Card Approach – Kaplan & Norton

8

9

Financial Customer

Innovation InternalWhat must our IT providers

(internally) excel at?

What do we as customers expect of IT provision?

As customers how do we view the costs of it provision?

Does our IT infrastructure enable us to continue to improve the business?

Availability of IT services

Quality of IT services

Performance of IT services

Value for money IT services

Reliability of the IT infrastructure

Support of hands-on IT users

Understanding IT costs to the business

Ability to control IT costs to the business

Economy of IT provision

Return on IT infrastructure investments

IT contracts management

Flexibility of the IT infrastructure

Ability to control changes to IT services and the IT infrastructure

Adaptability of the IT infrastructure to changing demand in the business

Communication and knowledge transfer

Business productivity in relation to IT costs

Harnessing (new) technology

Service-oriented culture

Skilled staff, bus. And IT expertise

Efficiency of IT service provision

Service delivery times

Processing capacity

Security

Accountability of IT provision

IT Balanced Scorecard

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Service Desk Balanced ScorecardFinancial Customer

Innovation Internal

goals

performanceindicators

goals

performanceindicators goals

performanceindicators

goals

performanceindicators

As customers within the

business, how do we

view the costs of the

Service Desk?

Does our Service Desk

enable us to continue to

improve the business?

What must our Service

Desk excel at?

What do we as

customers within the

business expect of the

Service Desk?

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Balanced Scorecard – Service Desk

Financial Customer

Innovation Internal

goals

performanceindicators

goals

performanceindicators goals

performanceindicators

goals

performanceindicators

-ability to control

Service Desk Costs

-reliability of Service

Desk

-support of hands-on

users

-business

productivity

-professionalism

-economy of Service

Desk

-value of Service

Desk

-quality of Service Desk

services

-performance of Service

Desk

-service culture

-incident resolution

-flexibility

-elapsed time for

incidents

-restoration of service

-number of registereduser complaints about IT

-on-time service delivery(defined by customer)

-availability of Service Desk (in

IT users’ perception)

-compliance to SLAs

-costs of Service Desk

-competitiveness of Service

Desk costs

-accuracy of Service Desk

cost forecasts

-number of business

improvements initiated by or

with help from the Service

Desk

-minimize MTTR -improvements in businessturnover

-reductions in business costsascribable to Service Desk

-new ways to provide service

-percentage of 'first time right'Incident resolutions

-time spent on resolution

-treating customers

with respect

-incidents resolved

within SLA’s-meeting SLA’s

SERVICE DESK METRICS

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Service Desk Telephony StatisticsStatistic Use / Issue

Average Speed of Answer Good statistic to use for Service Level

Monitoring – staffing requirements

Bad Statistic as it could drive analysts

behavior

Number inbound calls (Service

Desk line) by analyst

Good for estimating staffing

requirements

Bad if it drives analyst behavior

Number outbound calls

(Service Desk line) by analyst

Good for estimating staffing

requirements and

Number of inbound/outbound

personal line by analyst

Good - What number of calls are

bypassing the process / personal calls?

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Service Desk Telephony StatisticsStatistic Use / Issue

Average inbound talk time by

analyst

Good for estimating staffing requirements.

Good for identifying trends and training

opportunities

Average outbound talk time by

analyst

Good for estimating staffing requirements

Average abandoned rate Good – Bad - Average can be misleading

– check by day of week, 30 minute time

span

Comparison of inbound calls to

number of incident tickets

opened by analyst

Good – Bad Trend should remain fairly

constant. A serious incident could trigger

one ticket with multiple incidents attached

to the one ticket

15

Service Desk – Incident ManagementStatistic Use / Issue

First level resolution by priority

and category

Good statistic to initially move upward –

but should go down over time

Average time for incident

resolution by priority and

category

Good for staffing requirements, identifying

training opportunities

Bad if it drives analyst behavior

Number of Service Level

Breaches - overall

Good for identifying Improvement

opportunities and OLA opportunities if not

in place

Number of breaches by internal

(OLA’s)

Good - Identifies either a need for, a

possible short fall in OLA’s

Number of breaches by external

(UC’s)

Good - Identifies a possible shortfall in the

vendor contract

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Service Desk – Incident ManagementStatistic Use / Issue

Most common incidents by category,

type, and item

Good for raising problem alerts. Possible

incidents resolutions to automate. Helps identify

training opportunities in the business.

Bad because of poor categorization

Cost per incident Good - Can be used to benchmark.

Bad - Often poorly calculated

Incidents logged by those other than

the Service Desk

Good - Identifies areas where customers are by-

passing the process

Customer Satisfaction Good to identify customer perception on an

ongoing basis.

Bad if poor questions, response format or it is

too long between the events or if the customer

believes nothing will happen with the results

17

Service Desk – Request FulfillmentStatistic Use / Issue

Number of service requests Good for input into staffing requirements

Requests fulfilled by the Service

Desk

Good – input into staffing needs

Bad – doesn’t provide information on requests

filled by other groups

Requests fulfilled by the Service

Desk within Service Level Targets

Good on ability of the Service Desk to fulfill

requests

Bad – doesn’t provide metrics on requests filled

outside of the Service Desk

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Service Desk – Quality AssuranceStatistic Use / Issue

Number of incidents incorrectly

escalated

Good - Identifies Service Desk training

opportunities

Number of tickets reopened /

reclassified

Good - Identifies Service Desk training

opportunities

Number of Requests for Change

raised

Good - Helps identify Service Desk activities

which is important for staffing decisions

Number of Problem Alerts raised Good - Helps identify Service Desk activities

which is important for staffing decisions

Quality review of incident description,

prioritization, categorization and

resolution descriptions

Good - Identifies Service Desk and Nth level

support training opportunities

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From Strategies To Measures

Financial

Perspective

1.

2.

3.

What will

success mean

from these

perspectives?

What are the

goals and

critical success

factors?

What are the

KPIs?

What are the

critical metrics

and measures?

What is our vision?Strategy

Goals & Objectives

Internal

Perspective

Innovation & Learning

PerspectiveCustomer

Perspective

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

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Measurements

• Famous sayings and truths about measurements:

'If you don't measure it, you can't manage it'

'If you don't measure it, you can't improve it‘

'If you don't measure it, you probably don't care’

'If you can't influence it, then don't measure it'

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Measurement Advice“Measurements should induce the parts to do what is good for thewhole, and measurements should direct managers to those partsthat need their attention.”

E. Goldratt

“What gets measured gets done, however be careful

sometimes what you measure is the only thing that gets done”

Anonymous

“When developing management reports they should always be

S.M.A.R.T” (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time

Bounded)

Anonymous

The Deming Cycle

Effective Quality Improvement

Timescale

Ma

turi

ty L

eve

l

Consolidation of the level reached(i.e.: baseline)

Business

IT

Alignment

Plan Project Plan

Do Project

Check Audit

Act New Actions

CHECK

PLANACT

DO

Continual quality control and consolidation

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