Measuring IT Service Management Performance: A Model Development

Abstract

Prompted by the realisation that IT is now seen as a service, with a customer focus and process orientation, the authors propose a model to measure IT service management (ITSM) performance. Measuring ITSM performance will enable organisations to demonstrate the benefit from their investment. The model is based on a systematic literature review that progressed from considering the general areas of organisation performance measurement to examining commonly used performance metrics. Although there are a number of studies on ITSM implementation, only a few considered the performance measurement of ITSM. A structured method for the design of the model was adopted through a three-level analysis. A comparison of existing performance measurement frameworks was first made to identify those that are suitable for ITSM and that would facilitate communication between the business and IT function. This was done using appropriate dimensions from past work of various performance measurement researchers. The frameworks were then classified along these dimensions to identify their completeness, eliminate unnecessary dimensions, and identify the natural dimensions for ITSM.