IT Performance Management To
Help You Get The Results You Want

If you're new to IT project outsourcing, and IT performance management is not something you're used to conducting with your in-house IT department, then this section of our site will be of great value to you.

It's also one more reason why you should involve a skilled IT outsourcing expert to help you with this process.

This means that your potential service provider's activities need to align with the strategic goals and business objectives of the company. They must deliver what they've promised on time and within budget.

In order for this to work, you need to:

• Define goals and objectives in clear, tangible, and quantifiable terms.
• Develop activities that are designed to meet these goals.
• Monitor performance, comparing it to the planned activities.
• Analyze performance deviations.
• Advise key managers of these issues.
• Formulate corrective plans.
• Implement these plans.

Instituting IT performance management with your service provider will be an important function for CIOs and IT management because when set up properly it will tell senior management what's working, what's not working and what needs to be fixed.

The performance information that is often lacking relates to the non-technical aspects of the job. To check, you can ask questions like these:

• Are activities progressing as planned?
• Are there signs indicating potential future problems?
• Are there activities that require higher management's involvement now?
• Have the actions taken to correct problems actually worked?

Implementing IT Performance Management

The first steps to implementing IT performance management involve:

• Defining the overall analytic framework.
• Formulating the implementation plans.
• Assigning the analytic responsibility.
• Performing any staff and management training.
• Designing and setting up any supporting applications.

Once these have been established, then performance management is a series of recurring steps:

• Routinely gathering the right performance data.
• Analyzing this data to establish a "normal" baseline level.
• Determine performance thresholds for each area being monitored so that when a threshold is exceeded, then it becomes something that must be looked at.
• Monthly monitoring performance variables for deviations from the norm so that management:
  • Can decide if the issue must be more closely monitored.
  • Contact the appropriate people for explanations.
• Report these variations to the appropriate management level.
• Take corrective action.

The intent of this process is to provide management with a stable, recurring "early warning" system to detect and prevent potential problems from actually occurring. Some additional tools to use are:

• Simulations. Do a "what if" analysis to project how changes to some activities might impact other areas.
• Trend Analyses. These will uncover potential problems that are not showing as part of the normal monitoring process.
• Performance Reviews. Conduct actual audits where a detailed assessment is performed on a major activity.

Does IT Performance Management Fail?

Sometimes these performance initiatives fail because:

• The people tasked with this function lack the experience and have not been properly trained.
• Senior management's needs were not well defined at the start so the overall implementation plan was faulty.
• Too much data is gathered at the beginning and the analytical people are overwhelmed.

These issues are usually all resolved within the first few months of operation.

Here are some steps to help ensure a successful implementation:

• Make sure you have a firm understanding of management's needs.
• Make sure you have a clear picture of what you'll do and how you'll implement it.
• Make sure you hire people who have the expertise and skills in performance management systems.
• Study other organizations to see how they set it up and learn from their mistakes.
• Make sure the key people involved understand and agree on what is to be done.
• Start with a limited pilot project that will produce results quickly and enable you to work out the bugs.

Performance management can and does improve the way your organization plans and conducts its business. Effective performance management takes time to develop and implement and you must have the commitment of senior management.

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