Key Performance Indicators
The problem
With the increasing quantity and complexity of applications and hardware, tracking down and more importantly predicting problems becomes ever more complex. Add to this the potential mix of various interested parties and the responsibility for an issue can quickly become clouded stopping your IT systems in mid stream.
One of our customers had just this situation, with a large collection of applications and servers to run and exhibiting problems which were difficult to track down and identify.
These difficulties were further compounded by a system in flux, where software updates were being made which masked the root cause of the issues.
The impact of these tended to be...
- ...delay in resolving the issue. No one owned the problem!
- ...reduced user confidence and perception in the system
- ...IT tended to get blamed for other non-related issues
- ...reduced output due to downtime or reduced service
- ...could not quantify amount of progress
Our solution
Xype were asked to help independently of the existing software and hardware vendors to analyse the situation and put in place a solution to the whole issue resolution process.
Our solution was to implement a combination of software and process change.
The software was an application which recorded many statistics from all over the system covering information such as 'CAD data throughput' to 'number of concurrent users on the PDM system' and beyond.
Each of these statistics were updated every day by worker scripts allowing us to provide an up to date audit trail of the entire system and interesting properties or 'KPI's (Key Performance Indicators).
We also included a mechanism to track system changes (such as software updates) so we could immediately see their impact on the statistics.
Now the software may sound similar to many other monitoring tools on the market, many of which ring bells or send emails when a value breaches a threshold, but the difference here was that we tied this application into a process whereby every single KPI is assigned an owner. Hence for every aspect of the entire system, the owner and in turn the person responsible for resolving any issues with that KPI is also identified.
As part of their ownership, they have the responsibility to ensure the KPI is and remains within acceptable limits by confirming its health via a system of Red/Amber/Green flags.
The impact of this was to immediately improve all performance indicators, introduce a focus for management around KPIs, a clear chain of responsibility and turn around in all areas of issue resolution.
To date the system continues to be expanded to additional areas of the business and an ever increasing list of KPIs.
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