PREFACE

This book is an invaluable addition to every IT professional’s library. Metrics are an increasingly important tool for the management of organizations. All too often, a workforce jumps into action with a flurry of activities with no real thought as to what the outcomes need to be. The end result is a great deal of spending for no tangible service results. This book provides an excellent defense against spending for no gain in service. It provides insights to the proper design, implementation and utilization of IT service lifecycle process metrics as a means of monitoring and controlling IT service delivery. Of particular value is the incorporation of recommendations for applying metrics as operational performance decision support tools.

The authors have applied industry-standard frameworks to the design and implementation of IT Service Management (ITSM) metrics. Based on the ITIL^® 2011 service lifecycle processes along with principles from ISO/IEC 20000 and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK™), it is a guide to developing and using metrics as a means of monitoring and controlling the delivery of IT services. The book includes a wide variety of detailed metrics to enable quick and direct implementation. It also contains guidelines for developing customized metrics based on specialized needs of the business.

Toby R. Gouker, PhD, GSLC

Chancellor, SANS Technology Institute

With the right amount of effort and determination, anyone can achieve some degree of success. However, to understand the level and extent of that success we need to be able to measure both our efforts and the results in order to know whether we have met or exceeded goals and expectations. The key to this understanding is found within the measurements and metrics collected during execution.

Metrics are the source of valuable information for any organization and can provide an abundance of benefits including:

•   Demonstrating organizational maturity
•   Driving and changing the behavior of the organization and staff
•   Discovering opportunities for improvement
•   Justification for change and the cost of change.

Having the information provided by metrics will help develop the knowledge necessary to improve decision making throughout the organization. Without metrics, decision making can become dependent upon knowledgeable individuals or, even worse, based upon guess work.

In order for any metric to provide benefit, we must understand our goals and expectations for the metric rooted in the success of the process, service, or product we are measuring. The goal(s) will give purpose and meaning for each metric and will help to justify the collection of data for the metric. The expectations help us understand the targets we must achieve for success. For our metrics, these targets are the Acceptable Quality Levels (AQLs) defined for each metric. An AQL should be established by the requirements documented for the process, service, or product (whether business or technical). Depending on the level of maturity, some organizations can clearly define their AQLs while others may need to collect initial metrics to baseline and then set trending goals for improvement. We provide AQLs for many of the metrics documented in this book. These are based on experience and feedback but, for the most part, they are nothing more than guidelines. In the end, you must determine your AQLs for each metric

Now that we have explained our thoughts concerning metrics and how important they can be, we want to make sure that you understand that developing, collecting, and reporting metrics is not a quick and easy effort to accomplish. While there are several organizations across the globe that have mature metrics capabilities, many that are already on the metrics path, and quite a few that are just starting; we want to make sure that there is an understanding of the struggles involved with achieving metric maturity. The most difficult part of developing metrics is dealing with different parts of the organization and the people involved. Understand that everyone has an opinion and that they will voice their opinion at either the right time or place. This will take time, patience, and compromise to create effective metrics. Other difficulties include tools, funding, and unknown requirements. Eventually, you will get past the development stage and come to agreement on a good set of metrics. We wish nothing but the best on this journey or that you are at least able to maintain your sanity.

So, as you move forward ensure that measurements and metrics are an early activity within your lifecycle and instill a positive and proactive mindset for these metrics. This mindset will help change the way your organization develops and manages the services offered. Remember this:

Finding problems and issues is a good thing: discovering opportunities is a great thing.

Create that positive mindset and use this book as a reference to create metrics for your services and environment. Then use these metrics to find opportunities to improve.