4 Service Improvement

Basics​

Any good team reviews its performance periodically and takes steps to improve. The IT Department is no different, and many follow steps of a continuous improvement model or process that allows the Department to become more efficient and more effective. This is no small feat when it comes to working with technology, because new technologies are being introduced all the time that impact your work. Whether you are or are not directly responsible for reviewing performance indicators for individuals, groups, or the entire department, everyone in the department plays a role in following your department’s service model and providing adequate information for those who do have to review performance. The final phase of the service model, Service Improvement, is related to taking steps to improve the services the IT Department provides.

You should know the following terms:

  • Continuous improvement
  • Metrics
  • Objectives

IT Department leaders can rely on a range of data sources to determine how well the department is doing. One of these is checking in with customers to see how satisfied they are with their interactions with the department. “Customer,” in this case, can be any student, parent, or staff member that contacts the Department--including staff internal to the IT Department. There are different strategies to determine the level of customer satisfaction, including surveys, satisfaction ratings on tickets, or through contacts by email or phone to name a few. Every member of the IT Department should understand what type of customer satisfaction data is collected and their role, if any, in obtaining it for the department.

Along with customer satisfaction data, those responsible for reviewing the performance of the IT Department, or teams or individuals in that department, often have a wealth of additional information to review. A significant amount of that data comes from the Service Request system your Department has adopted. This system may support customer satisfaction data, but also provides information on the type of requests being made and whether they are covered in the current Service Catalog, which requests are being successfully resolved and how quickly, who is doing a good job resolving requests and who might need some support, and other measures. This data can also be compared to other data, especially financial data, to make a more informed decision about the department’s performance.

All members of the Department should know and understand the primary measures, or metrics, that serve as goals for the Department. These are often stated as objectives and may have several indicators that are reviewed to determine whether the department met these objectives and where there may be a need for improvement. 

Reviews of the data aligned to objectives should be made over a routine period and the results shared with appropriate team members. Sometimes the results are shared with an individual, such as during a performance review. At other times, the results may be shared with select teams or the entire department. Sometimes, these results are a cause for celebration! Other times, they are used as information to improve and possibly change the technologies used in the district, the procedures the IT Department follows, and the quality of service all staff provide to those they work with. The Service Improvement phase of the Service Model is an important component of keeping your IT Department efficient and effective as the technologies around us continuously change.

Complete the following task or self-assessment:

Find out (or determine) the following for your department (these are important whether you are department of 1 or more):

  • What are the objectives the department has set for measuring its own performance?
  • How are you involved in providing data or information to help department leaders make decisions about performance?
  • What is your obligation for ensuring the department has sufficient data or information to conduct a review? 
  • When is this data routinely shared with staff? Do you understand it?
  • What data may be used for individual job performance reviews versus data that can improve the department more holistically?