|
| RealMarket Stock Index |
| RMSI | 61.30 |  | 1.47% |
| Dow Jones | 12,114.10 | | 0.99% |
| Nasdaq | 2,368.00 | | 1.53% |
| S&P 500 | 1,387.17 | | 1.15% |
| Top Gainers |
| Unica | 11.3 |  | 0.28 |
| Sykes | 16.21 | | 0.20 |
| APAC | 5.03 | | 0.12 |
| Top Losers |
| salesforce.com | 42.64 | | -1.72 |
| SAP | 46.22 | | -1.30 |
| Nortel Networks | 28.29 | | -1.14 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 03/02/07 |
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 "Our Take" - Guest Contribution
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Baselining Your Support Organization
By Ron Muns, CEO and founder of HDI
Baselining your support organization is the process of measuring one or more key statistics over time. Baselining is not complicated nor is it difficult. You merely record the key statistic(s) and present the numbers in a graph that shows changes over time. Baselining is non-judgmental. Judgment comes later. Judgment comes when you discuss a number. Once you decide how you want the number to change, then you have made a judgment. For example, if you are one of the many HDI members using the HDI Customer Satisfaction Index Service, and you notice that of the five questions asked, the lowest score is the one that measures courtesy or technical skills, you may make the judgment that more training is needed in the area of customer service or specific technical subjects. Once you make a judgment about the metric you are baselining and you seek to improve that number, you are entering the field of performance management.
Performance Management
So, you want your numbers to be better? Well, I agree...this is and should be a continual pursuit. The betterment of your "numbers" is a constant and never-ending endeavor. How much do you want to improve them? Is a 3.75 score on "courtesy of the analyst" a good score, or do you think it should be a 4.75? How aggressive should you make your target?
Well, in my opinion, the key is to have a target that is better than where you are at today with a specific plan for improvement. It is even better if you can define a value proposition for the improvement. However, every increase in improvement comes at a cost. So, what is the value of improving a specific benchmark number? If you can answer this, you can get a stronger commitment from your team and your management. As you implement changes to improve a specific metric, continue to track changes in the performance. If you see your number improve, you are meeting your goal. If not, you need to rethink what is causing the number to stagnate or decline.
Often times our metrics are impacted by multiple variables. You may be making positive moves to improve the courtesy of the analyst, but, if major changes are occurring in the infrastructure and call volumes are growing rapidly, then your analysts may be overly-stressed which will impact their performance. Performance management initiatives should isolate performance variables when possible. When this is not possible, then you should report multiple metrics together which will highlight how they affect one another. In an earlier Muns Report, I discussed the Balanced Score Card Service Model (5/25/2005) and the value of presenting multiple variables that impact one another.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking support organizations is the comparing of key statistics between organizations. It is human nature to know how well we are doing when compared to others. We gain comfort if we see that our metrics are better than others. We must be doing something right and we can brag and show off! "Yea us!"
Well, comparison numbers (benchmarks) are also very misleading. In a beauty contest or school sporting event, the competition is generally based upon contestants of the same age. So, we see the winners as being the best. But, in support organizations there are many variables that make the comparisons "not comparable." A few items that make benchmarking support organizations "not comparable" include:
Type of customers (example, research analysts versus clerical workers)
Type of infrastructure supported (example, standardized enterprise applications versus open architecture decentralized computing)
Central office support versus support for multiple global offices
Complex computing versus simplified computing environments
Customer expectations (example, internal versus external customers)
Customer skills (example, highly experienced versus customer new to the technology environment)
Industry (example, health care support versus support for banking clients)
Each of you can identify your own uniqueness to add to this list
Well, regardless of all these deficiencies, most of our members still want to see benchmark numbers. For the most part this is out of curiosity, but benchmarks are often used for two key reasons. One is to brag and the second is to show management why you need financial support when your numbers don't look so good.
To me, the real benefit of benchmark comparisons comes only when you gather metrics, practices, policies, and funding for your support organizations and then apply judgment. I believe that if you look at all these elements for a number of support organizations in your industry, you can begin to draw some conclusions. We at HDI are continuing to explore how we can help in this area and are open to your ideas and suggestions.
Conclusion
I suggest you begin an aggressive program of tracking key metrics. Care should be taken to follow common definitions and calculations. You can refer to the HDI Metrics Guides, white papers, and the HDI Glossary of Terms to improve your chances of gathering "baseline" data so that they can be compared to others at a later date. Once you see trends in the baseline data, you will want to begin performance improvement initiatives (aka performance management). And, at some point, you will likely want to participate in benchmarking. You will, of course, want to participate in HDI's annual practices and salary surveys. But you may also want to participate in benchmark groups for your industry. One way to do this is to participate in an HDI Forum or to subscribe to the HDI Customer Satisfaction Index Service or some other such benchmarking group within your industry.
Best of luck in your journey to IT service and support excellence!
Ron Muns is the CEO and founder of HDI, the leading association for IT service and support professionals, and the IT Infrastructure Management Association, the IT industry's association for those professionals responsible for the deployment, management, and effectiveness of IT infrastructure.
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