Francis Gacenga

When asked about their ITSM performance measurement practices most organisations respond hesitantly and usually have a glum view of their efforts, tending to focus more on ITSM performance measurement challenges. However there are good practices that are found amidst the challenges. This case study provides an account of the performance measurement practices of an Australian public sector organisation.

ABSTRACT The extensive adoption of ITSM frameworks by organisations may point to the acceptance by IT service managers that frameworks such as ITI L and standards such as ISO / IEC 20000 can deliver real operational efficiencies, ultimately translating into revenue-increasing and cost-reducing benefits. Organisations implementing ITS M initiatives report realisation of benefits in cost savings and standardisation in delivery of IT service and support. However, despite the appeal and the tremendous potential to realise benefits, the implementation of ITSM initiatives is slowed not only by the size of the investment required but also by the difficulty in quantifying benefits and linking operational and financial benefits together.

ABSTRACT It has been reported that, on average, 70% of the IT budget is spent on IT operations. Although organisations have increasingly adopted ITS M as an approach to effectively managing their IT operations, few independent empirical studies have been published exploring the benefits of ITSM. The study reported is being conducted in three stages over three years. In the first stage in November to December 2009 itSMF conducted a survey by sending out an online questionnaire of ITS M benefits to its 2,085 members and 263 responses were collected.

Continuous improvement of service quality results in enhanced customer satisfaction, increased efficiency and maximisation of business value of the service within the company. Decision-making on the course of service quality improvement is based on the current status of the measurable service quality attributes. The aim of the paper is to describe the IT service quality attributes that could be measured to improve IT service quality. We report on a systematic literature review of IT service quality measurement. The review was based on 134 relevant journal articles related to IT service quality management. Of these, 91 articles were selected for analysis. We propose a detailed and comprehensive quality measurement framework for IT services using the results of the systematic literature review to extend previous work. The framework presents six common issue areas with their associated measurement categories, measures, and indicators. IT service providers can choose the measures to satisfy their specific information needs from the proposed IT service quality measurement framework. We conclude that IT service quality improvement efforts could benefit from considering the internal IT service quality attributes from the viewpoint of the value the provided IT service could bring to both the customer and the provider.

The study provides a comprehensive literature review on the performance measurement of ITSM. A review of the existing industry and academic literature showed a gap in theory for performance measurement of ITSM. There was also a lack of a contextualised performance measurement framework for ITSM. The study developed categories for types of organisation level and process level ITSM, and categories for types of ITSM performance metrics. The performance measurement framework developed by the study is structured using the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and can be used to quantify benefits and link organisational level benefits and metrics with process level metrics. The developed framework includes a consolidated ITSM metrics catalogue structure. The study identified the internal and external organisational factors that influence the selection of ITSM performance metrics and proposes a contingency theory for the performance measurement of ITSM. The study makes theoretical and practical contributions in ITSM performance measurement by extending ITSM performance measurement theory, IS design theory and developing a holistic multi-level ITSM performance measurement framework that can be used by organisations.
This dissertation is a result of a study funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) linkage project grant in partnership with Queensland Health (QH) and the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) Australia. The study contributes to the linkage project by addressing the complex interactions of benefits, performance metrics and methods to enable Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and IT service managers to measure the performance of IT service management.