Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for Small Information Technology Departments

Due credit to Michael Cruse

Individuals, departments, and companies must track their performance in order to have a baseline and comparator for improvement over time. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the baseline of understanding needed to determine performance metrics and will keep individuals and groups on the competitive edge of performance.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of KPIs for individuals and departments. After all, “if you do not have a good baseline and understanding of basic performance metrics, you will not know when you are slipping into mediocrity or worse.” I received several e-mails asking what KPIs I would track in a small IT department. Since I received several requests, I thought I would do a short post on the topic.

In a small IT department, you do not want to burden the team with a bunch of new tracking activities. These should add a minimal amount of time to daily activities and take only a few hours a month to document in a report format.

Individual and/or Team KPIs

1. Average Technical Support Tickets Closed Per Day by MonthCurrent Year Verses Prior YearThis graph should show the average number for technical support tickets your team closed each business day by month. I would graph current year and prior year. You will need consistent rules about what is entered as a support ticket. If you do not have a technical support ticket tracking system, you can look at one of the open source solutions or use Outlook task folder in a common Exchange mailbox, folder, or public folder.

2. Total Closed Support Tickets Verses Helpdesk HoursCurrent Year Verses Prior YearIf you outsource this function then this graph will be very insightful and valuable when it comes time for annual contract renewal. I also use it to help me manage the support hours by making sure that we maintain productivity standards and not just adding billable hours.

3. New Support Tickets Created or Open Support TicketsCurrent Year Verses Prior YearI like to track open technical support tickets over time. This helps to see the general open workload over time. If I see this number heading north then I know it is time to add team members providing that my average close rates are holding steady or increasing slightly.

4. Average Time to Close a Technical Support Ticket per MonthCurrent Year Verses Prior YearI simply want to know how long on average it takes us to close new technical support tickets. This goes to my service level commitments to the users we support. Are we getting the job done timely? We have to know.

Systems KPIs

1. System Up-time PercentRolling 12 monthsWe have identified our core systems and targeted a 99.5 percent up-time. Any time one of these core systems is off-line unexpectedly the amount of time is logged. At the end of the month, we simply divide the total number of failed hours by the total number of operational hours in the month to see how we did.

2. Production StorageRolling 24 monthsThe goal here is to help justify the purchase of additional storage when needed. Being able to show how storage demand has increased over time enables me to more easily acquire the new assets when the time comes. Obviously, we have policies around data storage and purging, but the reality is that is never enough to keep data from eventually exceeding current capacity.

3. Production LoadRolling 12 monthsHere I would want to track the total number of users utilizing the server environment and the average peak CPU load. As the user base increases and becomes more demanding on the infrastructure, you should see the peak load on the servers steadily increase or hold higher levels for longer periods. Having this type of graph over time showing the increased pressure on the core server environment allows for easier acquisition of capital equipment. Be very particular on what servers you choose to track for this KPI.

4. Bandwidth utilizationRolling 12 monthsIn the small environment, I have never been able to get close to capacity of a modern Ethernet network. Therefore, I am really tracking just Internet bandwidth. I use a utility like MRTG to log and generate the charts based on the information it gathers from our router.

This is not a comprehensive list of all possible KPIs for a small IT department to track. These KPIs should give a good insight into the operational efficiencies of the department while not being administratively burdensome. I would have no problem taking these KPIs along with a decently written 1 to 2 page monthly report and send them off to the CFO or CEO for review. I would also be sure to review this information on a monthly basis with my team and even post the charts in a common IT work area.

What are some of the KPIs that you track for your team or as an individual?

Twitter8 Facebook5 LinkedIn2 Google

More

Related

KPI’s - The Truth Is in the Numbers, Ignore Them at Your Own Peril

KPIs stands for “Key Performance Indicators” and are a mechanism by which individuals, departments and companies track their performance. If you do not have a good baseline and understanding of basic…

In "Careers"

Annual Performance Reviews

I do not know too many managers, other than the fine folks in HR, that love to complete annual performance reviews. "Good" employees tend to get good reviews, and typically have little…

In "Careers"

Computing under lock and key, the corporate computing life

In "Information Tech"