How do you know which service metrics to use and how do they reflect your organizations performance?

Throughout our history, we have consistently focused on software metrics. One of our thought leaders, Manfred Bundschuh, sat down with us and gave us an interview regarding his thoughts on software metrics.

Manfred is a big proponent of using software metrics properly to evaluate organizations. In his words:

Measurement can be a double-edged sword. It can save money and time, or it can cause damage to an organization. Organizations that border on a culture of malpractice will use numbers and statistics to say anything they want. On the other hand, the best performers tend to utilize their software metrics data properly. Read More>>

He readily admits that there are over a thousand different metrics that can be used to evaluate an organization, and that the tools for executing measurement, while not as numerous, are just as varied. He provides a lot of questions an organizations can use to determine what metrics they should collect based on their situation. He examines four reasons why metrics programs fail. He makes the point that:

 “The fact is, organizations have no idea how inefficient and unproductive they are. They do not take the time or effort to learn about best practices. As a result, they continue to operate in the dark; uninformed of all the various methods that could be having a positive impact on their business.” Read More>>

And we agree. What are your thoughts on the importance of appropriate metrics in evaluating whether an organization has selected the very best practices?

What Metrics are Valuable to the Typical CIO?

One of the key focuses of any application support effort should be measuring the progress of the support team and reporting to higher management. This begs the question – What metrics would be valuable to the typical CIO?

Nick Spanos explores this question in his article on “100 IT Performance Metrics.” He begins by stating that the goal of any IT organization is “to provide an information processing capability that benefits the business.” He continues by stating:

“One hundred data elements is more than a typical CIO would review. The CIO’s management team should be tracking and managing to these metrics. The highlighted metrics should be reviewed by a CIO on a regular basis.” Read More>>

He then lists in tabular form (for many pages) the top 100 measures he believes should be employed and whether they are a number or a graphical display. You’ll want to review each measure closely and come back to the blog ready to make your case for your favorite metrics.

What Are Beginning Metrics for an Offshore Outsourcing Engagement?

At Computer Aid, we have a saying that you can’t evaluate what you can’t measure. We’ve developed a whole series of measurements for our onshore teams that we regularly report to customers. But what metrics should be reported when there is an offshore team involved?

In his article “Tips, Tricks and Traps of IT Offshore Outsourcing”, Nick Krym provides a list of both application support and application development metrics. We will only focus on the application support metrics, because that is a focus of our blog. But we encourage you if you’re interested to review the article for his list of application development metrics.

He recommends the following measures be reported to customer management monthly with associated reasons: Continue reading “What Are Beginning Metrics for an Offshore Outsourcing Engagement?” »

Key Metrics for Application Outsourcing – What to Measure!

Application outsourcing engagements are typically governed via specific service agreements that are comprised of a number of SLAs. Metrics are a critical ingredient of an SLA. There are dozens of metrics that could potentially be measured for outsourced application support and maintenance services.

Tackle the Basics First

Days & Hours

Unit of Time – What is a “day”? Does it start in a specific time-zone? Does it include holidays? Does it include weekends?

Define a “day” starting from a specific time-zone such as the time-zone from which most of the application users work. Often, different SLA’s are defined based on different business calendars. For example, you may want 24×7 support for Severity-1 production support, whereas regular business hours may be adequate for requests that are not Severity-1.

  Continue reading “Key Metrics for Application Outsourcing – What to Measure!” »