Traoloch Collins, CEO, ServiceFrame discusses some approaches to understanding whether your SLA reports are producing valuable information. ServiceFrame is a leading software as a service governance tool for Shared Services and Vendor Management.
SLA Dashboards and balance scorecards are a generally accepted method of getting a quick and accurate view on overall performance in a shared services team or vendor relationship. They are relevant at a given point in time and a good tool to highlight areas of strength and areas that need improvement. However whilst most people acknowledge the importance of measuring KPIs, the truth is that information on performance against SLAs is not as readily accessible as popular discourse might lead you to believe. So why is this the case?
Agreeing on KPIs can be time consuming and controversial. Here are a few tips.
- Don’t set an expectation that you will measure all the right things from the beginning. If you can be flexible in your approach then a trial and error method will get you to where you need over time. Avoid lengthy projects to ‘define KPIs’.
- Focus initially on what it is you want to measure rather than performance levels. Very often there will be heated discussion about target service levels – often when no one has any real understanding of the baseline or current service levels. Start measuring to see where you are and agree a checkpoint to discuss service levels.
- Ensure that you pick KPIs that are measuring outcomes that are important to your business. Don’t measure things just because you can.
- Equally ensure that you select KPIs that you can measure.
- Focus on agreeing the process to ensure ongoing measurement of KPIs as much as the process of selecting KPIs.
Tracking performance against KPIs can be manual and time consuming;
- Ensure that there is clear agreement on how often you will report on KPIs
- Agree who will provide the input information against each KPI – will it be done manually or automatically.
- Agree a standard format for reporting on all KPIs
- Try to automate the process as much as possible
- Keep the process as simple as possible. Very often teams will try to over-engineer the process with high levels of automation – very often this creates significant delay in implementing a reporting process rather than speeding it up. Try an approach where you can automate KPI input over time as required.
My SLA looks green but we are not happy with performance!
- In some cases dashboards show performance as green but there is a general level of discontent with service quality. In this case the service levels and/or the KPIs are not aligned to the business requirements.
- Ensure that you capture issues as effectively as you capture KPI performance. A combined view of current and open issues as well as KPI performance will give you a very clear pointer to where there is misalignment between KPIs and requirements
- Have regular review meetings where service levels and issues are reviewed
- Be open to change and an ongoing process. Your SLA is not a static document – be open to changing KPIs and service levels over time – aligning them to business requirements.
- Ensure that service levels are clearly understood – in some cases service levels may be met but clients are unhappy – this can be caused by unclear and unrealistic expectations.
Governance in Shared Services and Vendor Management is a key focus for organisation who seek to be world class. Traditional spreadsheet management of issues and SLAs is now recognised as being too labour intensive and a barrier to effective analysis of performance over time. Many organisations are now turning to us to deploy a simple web based solution which ensures that all sourcing risks, issues and KPIs can be managed online. Leveraging the benefits of Software as a Service our clients get up and running in days for a small annual fee. If you would like to move governance to a robust online environment visit our SLA Governance website or contact us.
