Conversations from the Mirror42 Team

If it’s up… It’s down… per year

• 90%: 876 hours
• 95%: 438 hours
• 99%: 87 hours, 36 minutes
• 99.9%: 8 hours, 45 minutes, 36 second
• 99.99%: 52 minutes, 33.6 seconds
• 99.999%: 5 minutes, 15.36 seconds
• 99.9999%: 31.68 seconds

SMART = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

The key ingredients for ‘good’ definitions of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and its goals. I would add Relative to these ingredients to ensure that your KPI definitions (and goals) still apply when your business or volume grows. For example, you could take the number of open service calls (per period) as a KPI, but when the volume of service calls grows it is only natural that the number of open service calls grows. Therefore, the relative value against the number of reported service calls (e.g. % of open service calls) allows comparision of KPI values through time, even if the volume changes.

Therfore, SMARTeR.

Three (relatively simple) KPIs to measure the quality of the call-answer process:

• ABA (Abandon Rate): Percentage of calls abandoned while waiting to be answered
  
• ASA (Average Speed to Answer): Average time (usually in seconds) it takes for a call to be answered by the service desk
  
• TSF (Time Service Factor): Percentage of calls answered within a definite timeframe, e.g. 80% in 20 seconds

For more KPIs visit the Mirror42 KPI Libraries.

Although this interesting external post (”10 best ways to lie with metrics) focusses on business metrics, I think it also applies to IT management. Probably most relevant to Information Technology is number 3 — “use many metrics”.