{"id":5234,"date":"2015-09-08T19:15:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T19:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=5234"},"modified":"2025-07-04T14:52:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:52:03","slug":"how-to-measure-incident-management-efficiency-according-to-itil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2015\/09\/08\/how-to-measure-incident-management-efficiency-according-to-itil\/","title":{"rendered":"How to measure Incident Management efficiency according to ITIL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I remember a situation when most of the users were quite satisfied with the functionality of a service, but when things got tough \u2013 completely different situation. There were a lot of complaints about the speed and performance of the support team. That was a mirror image of what an IT organization should be \u2013 a lot of mess causing people to be inefficient and lose a lot of time and energy.<\/p>\n<p>So, it\u2019s logical that something must be done, but how to begin? If you are keeping your eyes on the organization, its processes and performance \u2013 it\u2019s easy. But, if you don\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">Motivational factor<\/h2>\n<p>First of all \u2013 why would you be interested in measuring how efficient your process is? Before I answer, let me ask you a counter question \u2013 do you know how your <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=relationship-and-agreement-processes&amp;doc=service-level-agreement-sla-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">customer<\/a>\u00a0perceives the value your service creates? There are three parameters:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Preferences \u2013 what the customer expected to get<\/li>\n<li>Business outcome \u2013 what the customer received, i.e., what he can do with the service<\/li>\n<li>Perception \u2013 that\u2019s the feeling your customer has regarding your services (and, consequently \u2013 you). And, that\u2019s the hardest parameter to control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><br \/>\nPreferences are the subject of good preparation. Business outcome is based on the functionality your service provides. Actually, perception is a factor that is highly influenced by the people you have and how productive and efficient they are.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s assume the service is delivering the agreed functionality. So, you can\u2019t influence (at least, not significantly) preferences and business outcome. The only parameter you can influence is perception in order to increase the customer\u2019s satisfaction. To do that, you need to know where you are, i.e., how efficient you are and what points you need to address.<\/p>\n<p>There is one thing you must take into consideration when talking about the efficiency of Incident Management \u2013 who is doing the appraisal. Namely, users are interested in having their service function all the time, while IT internally is talking about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), CSFs (Critical Success Factors), measurement, metrics applied, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Users are focused on the functionality they are paying for, but \u201cbehind the curtain\u201d there is a whole organization needed to maintain the provided (or, better to say, required) quality level. Take, as an example, a mobile network \u2013 you, as the user, just want to make calls or surf the Internet. But you don\u2019t know (and shouldn\u2019t care) about the effort required to keep the network available 24&#215;7.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5236\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/09\/Views_on_incidents.png\" alt=\"Different views on incidents\" width=\"423\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/09\/Views_on_incidents.png 423w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/09\/Views_on_incidents-300x178.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 423px) 100vw, 423px\" \/><em>Figure: Different points of view<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">External view<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s see the world from the users\u2019 eyes. What do they want? To use the service they are paying for. If something happens (i.e., an <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=incident-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">incident<\/a> occurs) \u2013 they still want to use that service (remember, they are paying for it). And, there you have the measure \u2013 the service is working or not. If the service is available most of the time and incidents don\u2019t occur too often \u2013 your users will (most probably) understand that errors or unavailability take place from time to time. But, don\u2019t underestimate that. They know when they requested your help (in <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ITIL<\/a> we would say \u2013 when the incident was opened) and when you replied, i.e., when you resolved the situation, whether it was with the expected quality\u2026 etc.<\/p>\n<p>So, here are a few metrics that your users employ to create their perception about the service, i.e., your performance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Response time \u2013 although, with the usage of IT Service Management tools, this parameter is measured in seconds or minutes, your users like that human touch and the feeling that \u201cthere is someone behind the e-mail address or web portal.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Speed of resolution \u2013 simply, how long it takes from opening an incident until they get the message \u2013 \u201cYour incident No. XXX has been resolved.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Quality of resolution \u2013 whether the provided resolution is really what they expected.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">Internal view<\/h2>\n<p>This is more complex. Being responsible for a service puts many obligations on the IT Service Management organization. In order to keep control of the organizations\u2019 (that could be, e.g., the IT department or some more specialized group like an ERP support team) performance and activities, as well as service performance and quality, you need to set metrics that will give you a clear picture of the situation. That means that you, as the responsible person (e.g., Incident Manager), would like to know how good, or bad, your team is. To do that, you set a bunch of parameters that you will watch. And, yes, the metrics that your customer uses \u2013 still apply. Here are a few examples of the metrics used internally by IT Service Management, i.e., Incident Management:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Number of resolved and unresolved incidents<\/li>\n<li>Number of reopened incidents<\/li>\n<li>Number of incidents escalated to next support level<\/li>\n<li>Number of incidents incorrectly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?_gl=1*1c227dk*_ga*MTM1NjQ0NTEwMS4xNjcxNTI4MDcz*_ga_SBHEDSXFP5*MTY3MTcwOTg0Ny44LjEuMTY3MTcxMDc5My41NS4wLjA.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">categorized<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Number of incidents incorrectly assigned<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">Lessons learned<\/h2>\n<p>Once you have your measurements, you have a solid foundation to create appropriate action. That means that you are now aware of the good points, but also where your weak points are. Additionally, you can use an extended incident lifecycle as explained in the article <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/08\/21\/availability-management-calculating-improvement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Availability Management \u2013 calculating for improvement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You know your tasks, you are aware of your performance (i.e., how you do), and you know what you have to do (what you need to improve). Such a clear picture sounds great. But, be aware that you are dealing with incidents (i.e., life is full of surprises) and there is always a customer in the background. And they see everything \u2013 how good or how bad you are. So, nobody is perfect and neither are you. But, once you learn your lessons (i.e., monitor, measure, and improve your efficiency), try not to repeat in-efficiency.<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I remember a situation when most of the users were quite satisfied with the functionality of a service, but when things got tough \u2013 completely different situation. There were a lot of complaints about the speed and performance of the support team. That was a mirror image of what an IT organization should be \u2013 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":5236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[404,487,357,344,235,486,204],"class_list":["post-5234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-customer","tag-efficiency","tag-incident-management","tag-itil","tag-measurement","tag-metrics","tag-service"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18500,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions\/18500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}