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Business Driven IT KPIs

April 30, 2018August 21, 20181 Comment

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are a critical management tool to measure the success and progress of effort put in towards achieving goals and targets – to continually improve performance.

Every business set their specific KPIs to measure the criteria that drive the business success – these vary from business to business. One thing every modern business has in common though, is IT – the enabler that underpin operational processes and tools used to commerce daily. Setting KPIs that measure the success of IT operations does not just help IT leadership to continuously improve but also proof the value of IT to the business.

Here are ten IT KPIs that matter most to modern business

1. % of IT investment into business initiative (customer-facing services and business units)
How well does the IT strategy, reflected in the projects it is executing, align with the business strategy? This metrics can help to align IT spend with business strategy and potentially eliminate IT projects for IT that does not align directly with business objectives.

2. % Business/Customer facing Services meeting SLAs (Service Level Agreements)
IT is delivering service to customers; these are internal to the business but can also be delivered external to the business’ client/customers directly. Are these services meeting required expectations and quality – in the eye of the customer? What can be done to improve.

3. IT Spend vs Plan/Budget
Budgets are set for a purpose – it is a financial guideline that indicates the route to success. How is IT performing against budget, against plans? Are you over-spending against the set plans? Why? Is it because of a problem in the planning cycle or something else? If you are over-spending/under-spending, in which areas do this occur?

Knowing this metrics give you the insight to take corrective actions and bring IT spend inline with budgets.

4. IT spend by business unit
IT service consumptione is driven by user demand. How is IT costs affected by the user demands by business unit – are business units responsible to cover their IT cost, hence owning up to the overall business efficiency. This metrics put the spotlight on the fact that IT is not free and give business unit manager visibility of their IT consumption and spend.

5. % Split of IT investment to Run, Grow, Transform the business
This is an interesting one for the CIO. Businesses usually expects IT to spend more money in growing the business but reality is that the IT cost of running the business is driven by the demand from IT users with an increased cost implication. Business transformation, now a key topic in every board meeting, needs a dedicated budget to succeed. How do these three investment compare in comparison with business strategic priorities.

6. Application & Service TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
What is the real cost of delivering IT services and application. Understanding the facts behind what makes up the total cost of IT and which applications/services are the most expensive, can help to identify initiatives to improve.

7. Infrastructure Unit Cost vs Target & Benchmarks
How do you measure the efficiency of your IT infrastructure and how does this compare with the industry benchmark? This is a powerful metrics to justify ROI (Return on Investment), IT’s value proposition, IT strategy and the associated budget.

8. % Projects on Time, Budget & Spec
Is the project portfolio under control? Which projects need remediation to get back on track and what can be learned from projects that do run smoothly?

9. % Project spend on customer-facing initiatives
How much is invested in IT projects in the business for the business (affecting the bottom line) in comparison with customer-centric projects that impacts the business’ top line.

10. Customer satisfaction scores for business/customer facing services

Measure the satisfaction of not just the internal business units that consume IT services but also the business’ customer’s satisfaction with customer-facing IT services. Understand what the customer wants and make the needed changes to IT operations to continuously improve customer satisfaction.

In the famous words of Peter Drucker “What gets measured gets improved”, KPIs give you the insight to understand:

your customer
your market
your financial performance
your internal process efficiency
your employee performance

Insight brings understanding that leads to actions driving continuously improve.

DevOps: An Immersive Simulation

April 5, 2018May 9, 2018Leave a comment

Guest Blog by…

BeDifrent

At Difrent our opinion is simple, Digital is about People not just Technology. We want to give a voice to those at Difrent and Difrent Alumni http://www.bedifrent.com

Apr 13

It’s 8:15 am on Thursday 5th April and I’m on the 360 bus to Imperial College, London. No — I’ve not decided to go back to college, I am attending a DevOps (a software engineering culture and practice that aims at unifying software development and software operation) simulation day being run by the fabulous guys from G2G3.

I’ve known the G2G3 team for several years now, having been on my very first ITSM (IT Service Management) simulation way back in 2010 when I worked for the NHS in Norfolk and I can honestly say that that first simulation blew me away! In fact, I was so impressed with that I have helped deliver almost 25 ITSM sims since that day, in partnership with G2G3.

Having worked with ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) based operations teams for most of my career, I remember when DevOps first became “a thing”. I was sharing an office with the Application Manager at the time and I can honestly say that it seemed a very chaotic way of justifying throwing fixes/enhancements into a live service. This really conflicted with my traditional ITSM beliefs that you should try to stop fires happening in the first place, so as you can imagine, we had some lively conversations in the office.

Since then, DevOps has grown into the significant, best practice approach that it is today. DevOps has found its place alongside service management best practice, allowing the two to complement each other.

Anyway, back to the 360 bus — let me tell you a bit about the day…

On arrival, I met with Jaro and Chris from G2G3 who were leading the day. The participants consisted of a variety of people from different backgrounds, some trainers, some practitioners, but all with a shared interest in DevOps. Big shout out as well to the guys who came all the way from Brazil!!! Shows how good these sessions are!

The day kicked off with us taking our places at the tables that are scattered around the room as we are given an explanation of how the sim works. I do not want to go into detail about what happens over the day, as you really need to approach these sessions with an open mind, rather than know the answers. What I can tell you is that the rest of the day consisted of rounds of activity, with each one followed by opportunities for learning and improving and planning. There are times when you find yourself doing something you would never normally do, amidst the chaos of the first round. This was summed up by my colleague, another service management professional, who had to admit that they “put it in untested”, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the room!

The day itself went by in a blur! People who you met at the beginning of the day, are now old friends that you go down the pub with at the end of the day! These new-found friends are also a fantastic pot of knowledge, with everyone able to share ideas and approaches.

The day was a rollercoaster of emotions — At the beginning of the day, I was apprehensive about whether I had enough knowledge of DevOps. Apprehension quickly changed to a general feeling of frustration and confusion through round one, as I tried to use my Tetris knowledge to develop products! I finished the day with a real sense of satisfaction — I had held my own and the whole team had been successful in developing products and delivering a profit for the business. There were some light-bulb moments for me along the way, in particular around needing to make sure that any developments should integrate with each other and also meet the user acceptance criteria. I also realised that DevOps is more structured than I thought with checkpoints along the way to ensure success. The unique way in which simulations are delivered serves to immerse people in a subject whilst encouraging them to change behaviours through self-discovery.

I have always received very good feedback for ITSM simulations, and I can see that the DevOps simulation will prove to be as successful.

Several of us also returned to Imperial College the next day to attend the Train the Trainer session for the DevOps simulation. This means that we can now offer tailored simulations either as an individual session or as part of a wider programme of change.

Simulations are always difficult to explain, without giving away the content of the day, but if you would like to find out more, please contact me onsandra.lewis@bedifrent.com

Written by Sandra Lewis — Difrent Service Mannagement Lead
@sandraattp | sandra.lewis@bedifrent.com | +44(0) 1753 752 220

Structure Technology for Success – using SOA

September 17, 2014October 28, 20182 Comments

How do you structure your technology department for success?

What is your definition of success?

Business success is usually measured in monetary terms – does the business make a profit, does the business grow?

What is the value contribution on IT within the business?

Are the IT staff financially intelligent & commercially aware?

Renier spoke at Meet-Up about how you can design your IT function, using Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) to design a Service Orientated Organisation (SOO), to directly contribute to the business success.

Slide Presentation pdf: Structure Technology for Success

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Managing Outsourced Relationships – an in-source approach

November 19, 2013March 12, 2018Leave a comment

IT outsourcing is big business and a provide real business value, financial savings and resource flexibility.

But is cheaper really better?

You cannot outsource a mess! Get your own house in order first before engage in a outsourcing partnership and managing IT vendors.

You should not outsource your core business proposition! Determine what your business is about and excel in the delivery of that – everything that is not core can be candidates for outsourcing.

Renier Botha spoke at the CIO Dialogue in Brighton about the value and risk associated with IT outsourcing. He introduced an insource Service Orientated (SOA) approach to outsourcing to mitigate the risks and ensure the appropriate governance delivering the right quality and customer service are achieved.

Slide Presentation pdf: Managing Outsourced Relationships

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Renier’s Biog for the Conference: