Building Dashboards from a Stakeholders Perspective

[Paul Rice]

Performance Analytics conversations are often kicked off with discussions about Key Performance Indicators.   KPIs are an important component of the reporting and analytics solution but using them as a starting place should raise questions.

• Why are we measuring this?
• What actions should we take to change the direction?
• How does this measurement impact my business?

A typical approach to implementing Performance Analytics would include enabling plugins and collecting data for the out of the box content with a focus on processes and applications.   The out of the box content is an excellent starting place and in many cases act as the building blocks when we start identifying the specific needs of the different roles within an organization.   By focusing on specific stakeholders rather than processes and applications we can provide targeted dashboards for everyday use across the organization.

Gathering the information needed to develop a stakeholder-centric dashboard requires a conversation. The format of that conversation is what this blog post is all about.

The following framework for a stakeholder conversation addresses the top down approach to determining desired outcomes and then generating the supporting measurements to track process toward their fulfillment.

Service Desk Stakeholder Conversation

Overview

This stakeholder conversation targets the service desk management to determine essential reporting and analytics needs.   Incident management and request fulfillment process drive the primary activities of most service desks.   Change, problem and knowledge management also have a significant impact on service desk operations.

There are several other considerations that may drive the need for additional reports and indicators. Service desk staffing can help predict workload.   Rate cards and IT costs can generate expense lines to calculate costs.

This document will help you prepare for a service desk stakeholder conversation. There will be updated examples of dashboards made available from the services PA resources page.

Framework for Determining Measurements

Mission and Vision

Not many service desks have taken to the idea of developing a mission statement.   We know what the service desk is supposed to do and we expect it to just happen.   A mission and vision statement can create a sense of direction for any organization. If the idea of coming up with your own causes some angst, turn to the internet.   Colleges and niversities are famous for developing the language to articulate direction.     These examples from the University of St. Andrews should meet the needs of most service desk organizations.

• Our vision is to provide a customer focused, single point of contact for IT Services, taking ownership of issues and requests, making the best use of people and tools, and delivering useful, friendly support and advice to all customers.
• The IT Service Desk mission is to effectively and efficiently provide access and availability to IT support services to the satisfaction of all its customers by providing an informative and supportive first point of contact and to assist all our customers in making the best use of technology in their business roles

IT service desk vision and mission statements - University of St Andrews

Outcomes

Outcomes are the results you wish to achieve.   What are you expecting to see in pursuit of your mission and vision?

In order to achieve out mission and vision we must…

• Reducing the costs of disruptions to services
• Effectively manage service desk staffing
• Maintain high customer satisfaction levels
• Reduce disruption due to the impact of changes
• Better return on investment for self-service support

Critical Success Factors

Critical success factors are the conditions that need to be met in order to process toward an outcome. This step in the analysis is critical because it provides you a "Why to measure" aspect of your KPIs.     For simplicity, I tend to use a standard set of CSFs when evaluating outcome performance.

• Understand and manage customer expectation
• Influence conditions that impact workload
• Control resource costs

Identify Measurements

Attempt to identify 2-3 specific KPIs for each of the objectives

• Incident resolution cost
• Mean time to resolve Incidents
• Incident Backlog
• Service desk staffing levels
• Average incidents resolved per agent
• Incidents related to problems
• CSAT survey averages
• CSAT broken down by questions
• Total incident duration caused by change requests
• Expenses related to incidents caused by changes
• Knowledge read counts
• Self-service incidents resolved by the caller
• Self-service incidents abandoned

Discuss Data Required

Not all data will be readily available for desired KPIs.   Categorize indicators based on accessibility of the data.

• Data is collected by an existing application on the platform and will only require configuration of Incidents
• Data can be collected in an existing application but platform changes will be required
• An application can be created to allow for the collection of data
• Data exists in an outside source and can be integrated into the platform
• Data is manually generated and can be maintained in a manual indicator

Continual Service Improvement

Review processes from a service desk perspective

Incident Management - This process needs to be measured end to end. The service desk is engaged throughout the process.

• Incidents created by channel — identify the need to drive traffic to low-cost channels
• Average time to log an incident — Complexity of the form completed by the agent
• Incidents by Reassignment counts — Identify potential candidates for knowledge articles to drive to self-service

Problem Management - The services desk is involved in the initiation of the problem records. The service desk is involved with the initiation of the problem management process and also relies on documented known errors for resolutions.

• Frequency and accuracy of in the problem initiation phase — Managed the ability to identify reoccurring incidents
• Incident records may be resolved by existing known errors — Measure how effectively known errors are communicated
• Incidents related to existing problems — Aid in building business cases to eliminate problems

Change Management - The services desk may require change requests to resolve incidents.   The service desk will also use change schedules to influence staffing plans. Changes implemented in the recent past may also result in disruptions.

• Incidents resolutions dependent on open changes - Understand the additional costs of incidents due to the time required to implement the change
• Incidents caused by changes — Implemented changes may cause disruptions due to poor quality, poor communication, or poor management of user expectations.

Request Fulfillment - The services desk is often responsible for fulfilling requests from users. Request fulfillment needs to balance the demands of the user community with available resources and supply.

• The number of requests by requested item — Understanding the items requested will help ensure proper supply is available.     This could be available computers on hand or number of software licenses available to deploy.
• Growth in backlog if fulfillment tasks — Growing backlog of fulfillment tasks may have an impact on staffing levels for the service desk.   This can also drive the need for further automation of the fulfillment process.
• The number of tasks fulfilled through automation — Justification for further investment in automated solutions.