Event Management
Table of Contents

Service Desks typically function as the front-line ambassadors of the IT Division to the end-user community. They represent the focal point for integrating the five disciplines in ITIL’s service support management processes – incident, problem, configuration, change, and release management. To accomplish this, service desk staff must be able to communicate effectively with users, using a number of different channels and technologies.

Process Requires Re-writing for conformance with ITIL Version 3. Translation of previous Service Desk function into Event Management process.
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Introduction to Event Management

Event Management is a process within the Service Operation module of the ITIL Service Lilfecycle.

With the widespread use of distributed computing, the IT community has been faced with the difficult job of managing the support of IT services. Early efforts were ad hoc with multiple service organizations providing divergent services to client groups based upon divisions of the total infrastructure. Costs were high, service was inconsistent and users where frequently confused as to whom they should contact. To control the escalating costs and to invoke some order to an increasingly chaotic environment, IT departments have devoted renewed attention to IT support functions and have consolidated and developed standard processes and policies for supporting end users. Today, a consolidated IT Service Desk can offer a single point of contact for providing multiple IS services to the user community. By providing specialized and knowledgable advise and assistance as an initial point of contact, the Service Desk can quickly resolve many service requests expeditiously with minimal draw upon resources. Requests which require additional attention can be routed to the correct source(s) for treatment.

“... every opportunity that your customer service organization has had to interact with customers has been an opportunity to nurture relationships.”

Doing More with Less, Next-Generation Strategies and Best Practices for Customer Service, eGian Whitepaper, p.4

The Service Desk provides a vital contact point between business and technology clients, the IT Services Division and external support organizations. While Service Level Management is a prime business enabler for this function, the Service Desk acts has a key and primary role in the ongoing relationships with technology users by:

providing a single point of contact for all technology-related items thereby better ensuring that pending and potential technology issues get properly directed and addressed earlier, hence reducing undue disruption of business processes,
providing specialist services in front-line customer management, incident routing to the correct SME group for attention and knowledge-base access and usage
supporting the integration and management of Change across distributed business, technology and process boundaries,
ensuring "ownership" of requests is correctly retained or transferred so that Trouble Tickets are not misplaced or lost and that fulfillment of service requests is governed by agreed-upon service commitments,
ensuring customer satisfaction is taken into account,
producing management information including:
- resource usage
- service deficiencies
- service performance and target achievement

Event Management

Objectives

By instituting best practices in Service Desk management an organization can aspire to realize the following objectives:

reduce confusion by users who initiate a service event through a single point of access. The appropriate routing of user requests is done either by service agents or automated online systems with detailed knowledge of the structure of the internal organization and accessing consistent diagnostic scripts to gather requisite information efficiently. The result will be fewer mis-directions of requests,
adhere to procedures governing the ownership of service requests and incident resolution so that the status of all service events have designated accountability for their realization within timeframes established in SLA. The Service Desk can ensure requests continue to be considered by retaining accountability for their fulfillment. This role of "service request controller" ensures all active issues are being considered within the context of agreed-upon service commitments previously negotiated with business representatives.
Establishes the foundation for a Knowledge Management System. The information collected and experienced gained from troubleshooting can be documented and shared across the organization to resolve similar recurring problems or to identify root cause fixes that eliminate the problems completely. By using prepared scripts and diagnostic tools, expeditiously fulfill service events which do not require specialized knowledge, while quickly referring those that do required specialized knowledge to the correct location for treatment accompanied by information which can be easily collected at the first point of contact
Supports Consistent Usage of Technology across the Organization.The service desk agent has the luxury of seeing how different individuals use technology and can share these findings throughout the organization to assist others with new best practices.
provide a centralized point of accountability and specialization for communications, service event recording and service catalogue usage
achieve efficient utilization of service desk staff support over the hours required for operation within best estimates of the demand for service

Critical Success Factors

Up-to-date and easily accessible Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and their answers are available
Knowledgeable and customer-oriented support staff resolve problems in close co-operation with the problem management staff
All user inquiries are consistently and thoroughly registered by the service desk
User inquiries that cannot be resolved in a timely manner are appropriately escalated
The clearance of user inquiries is monitored
User questions are resolved in a timely manner
Those user inquiries that cannot be resolved in a timely manner are investigated and acted upon
Management monitors trends to identify root causes in a proactive manner and follows up with analysis and the development of sustainable solutions
Corporate policies and programs are defined for training users in technology use and security practices
There is management awareness of the cost of support services and user downtime and of the need to take action on root-cause issues
Support costs are charged back to the business using simple tools and clear policies

Process Coverage

Scope

Usually In Scope

reference to and recommendation of additions and changes to Service Catalogues and knowledge bases
First point of contact for restoration of service outages
Identification and matching of Trouble Tickets caused by service failures
initial assignment of severity of service failures
informing people identifying or affected by a service event of progress towards its fulfillment and of its' final disposition
ensure quality recording of incidents, initial diagnosis and resolution attempts

Usually Excluded

Knowledge bases which facilitate self-help are the responsibility of Problem Management services
Maintenance of Service Catalogues is the responsibility of Service Level Management
Tier II involvement - ie., diagnosis and restoration of an incident following its' referral to a Subject Matter Group is encompassed under Incident Management
Service fulfillment procedures are covered under Service Requests. Additionally, since they often imply routine changes procedures are closely allied to a "Standard Change' in Change Management

Discretionary

many of the tasks associated with a Service Desk can be automated and offered through an online web-based entry system. While this has significant cost benefits to the organization, there are traditional functions performed by the Service Desk agent which need to be considered when implementing automation. These include:
- expect higher rates of mis-coded and mis-directed incidents and requests as users self-identify with available coding schemes rather than routing being determined by an trained expert
- knowledge base updating for incidents solved at first point of contact
- the differential rates of pay associated with maintaining generalist as the first point of contact and specialists performing the entire array of customer services
- matching of Tickets to a common underlying cause.
- communications associated with Ticket notification may be left to automated alerts without an agent's 'human touch'.
there needs to be a formal process of maintaining ownership of Trouble Tickets and Service Requests. As a general principle, the more times ownership is transferred from one unit to another the greater the liklihood that the ticket will get overlooked within the system and the longer the elapsed time (since transference involves time delays for hand-offs)

Assumptions

the organization - and, hence the Service Desk, is of sufficient size and complexity to entertain some specialization of roles associated with Service Request fulfillment, Incident, Change and Release Management
the Service Desk has not been completely replaced by automated (ie., form-based) entry of service requests)
Service Desk agents cost an organization less than specialized staff - therefore, the more issues resolved by the Service Desk Agent at first point of contact the better the utilization rate of Incident Agents and the lower the overall cost to the organization,

Relationship to Other Processes

Incident Management

Incident Management deals with any service-disrupting event that can be resolved by the service desk and its escalation partners. The service desk is responsible for handling the incident from its report to its resolution. The service desk either resolves the incident or coordinates the efforts toward resolution with its escalation partners. The service desk facilitates and records resolutions through the incident-tracking tool during the outage. During the resolution process, the service desk is the conduit between support teams and customers. Complete tracking of the event with the help of the incident-tracking tool ensures that historical reference information is accessible by the CMDB at the conclusion of the process.

Problem Management

Problem Management involves any service-disrupting event that cannot be resolved within a single entity, such as the service desk or its escalation partners. Problem Management may require the cooperative effort of several IT support organizations. Typically, a problem begins its life cycle as an incident reported to the service desk by customers. Based on the number of related incidents or complexity of the incident, the service desk may upgrade the event from an incident to a problem. The Service Desk may also be informed of a problem by the team charged with availability or monitoring. During the resolution process, the Service Desk is the link between support teams and customers.

Service Monitoring and Control

Service monitoring and control involves aspects of system performance and impacts both Availability Management and Capacity Management. The Service Desk leverages the results of ongoing monitoring to proactively track trends in system component failure. As customers contact the Service Desk with incidents and problems in progress, the service desk can appropriately resolve or escalate the issue before the situation impacts productivity.

Security Administration

For the Service Desk, security administration tasks can involve working with the information needed for planning, selecting, implementing, managing, and reviewing security controls. This information may include processes and procedures needed to respond to security events.

The Service Desk can effectively manage security by enforcing customer access requirements, removing terminated users, and serving as the single point of contact for customers. In addition, the Service Desk can document and sometimes resolve security events such as virus infestations.

Release Management

Release Management deals with all aspects of the decision to upgrade system software, including operating systems, database management systems, and applications. The service desk serves as the primary customer interface during the release process. The service desk supports the release during the pilot and then continues to support the release after full implementation. In many cases, the Service Desk also supports the legacy system during the release and assists in the retiring an application or process.

Change Management

Change Management deals with the coordination of any change that occurs within an organization, including software upgrades (see Release Management), entire system overhauls, organizational or personnel changes, business changes, and so on. It is the responsibility of the Change Management team to ensure that affected parties are involved in the change process. As with Release Management, the Service Desk serves as the primary resource to the customer during the change process.

Availability Management

Availability Management deals with overall system availability versus downtime. Since most organizations are essentially paralyzed when systems fail, it is extremely important to properly configure and monitor systems to maximize uptime and the mean time between critical failures. The Service Desk must be aware of the required uptime for each system; the business impact of failed systems must be well defined. The service desk is the initial point of contact and primary source of information as the incident-to-problem evolution process unfolds. For example, as multiple customers begin reporting the same service disruptions, the service desk recognizes the trend and declares that these separate incidents are really a problem affecting the enterprise.

Capacity Management

Capacity Management deals with planning for additional resources as use of system resources increases and begins to near the point of full capacity. Capacity Management ties directly to monitoring and measurement, as well as to Availability Management. The Service Desk assists the process through the identification of capacity-related incidents and problems, as they are experienced.

Configuration Management

Configuration Management enables control of the IT infrastructure. It does this by documenting the important components within the IT environment. Administrators should know and control the versions of the operating systems, database management systems, and applications that are running on network machines.

The Service Desk is a primary user of the incident-tracking tool and the configuration management database (CMDB). The Service Desk uses these tools as a primary source of information to understand the environment when resolving customer issues. As the central, single point of contact for IT support, the Service Desk should be positioned to feed information to the incident-tracking tool and the CMDB. As the Service Desk staff resolves issues, they should update the incident-tracking tool with incident details, including resolution information. This information can prove invaluable for future reference by the entire IT support organization when resolving problems or evaluating the infrastructure.

Service Continuity Management

Service Continuity Management provides proactive planning for service disruptions to critical systems. Small-scale impacts include single server or component failures, short-term power disruptions, and preventive maintenance disruptions in environments with high availabilty processing requirements. Large-scale impacts may include an entire data center being incapacitated due to power outages, floods, fire, civil unrest, terrorism, and so on. The Service Desk should be aware of disaster recovery procedures, but should not directly influence the overall service continuity effort.

Financial Management

Every organization within IT needs to effectively manage its costs, and the Service Desk is no exception. In order for the service desk to provide efficient and effective services to the enterprise, it must understand and quantify its costs. IT support costs often increase as the complexity of support issues increase.

Service Level Management

To ensure that customer expectations are appropriately set, the Service Desk must establish service levels. Service Level Management (SLM) is essential to the relationships that the Service Desk maintains with its customer and support partners. The level of global IT service required to support the business is determined through the SLM process. As the initial (and sometimes the only) contact between customers and IT support partners, the Service Desk needs to be consulted in setting agreements with IT customers. And, it must negotiate expected service levels for its' own service. Effective management of service levels allows the service desk to be productive and focused in providing service.

Policies & Guidelines

there should be limited (preferably a single) points of contact for all service events within an organization.
for all but the smallest of organizations, computerized system(s) will be used to log and track service events. A Service Request or Incident Ticket will be uniquely assigned to all requests for service. HOWTO inquiries are treated as a service offering by the Service Desk.
service event performance will be governed by agreed-upon timeframes, specified in SLAs which are reviewed at regular intervals. Performance is monitored regularly and service variations addressed by business and IT management.
the Service Desk may be the initial owner of all service events. The "Owner" is responsible for the fulfillment of the service request within established performance expectations. Subsequent Owners must formally "accept" ownership for a transfer to take place. New owners accepting the transfer are responsible for meeting the service expectations established in SLAs.
there should be formalized performance expectations between organizational units involved in the exchange of Ticket Ownership. The terms of these exchanges are negotiated and maintained in Operational Level Agreements.
there should be guidelines established for the assignment of a priority for the fulfillment of the service request. Timeframes for this will vary according to the assigned priority. The Service desk is responsible for the initial assignment of priority. The priority can be changed only by the Owner responsible for fulfillment.
in order to achieve optimal Service Desk efficiency, agents must be able to find the right answer quickly. To do so, they need structured Knowledge, managed in conjunction with knowledge base search technology. To maintain the integrity of this source it MUST be the definitive and only source for recording the organization's solutions, diagnosis, workarounds.
customers should have direct access to knowledge sources. The information must be timely, accurate, easy to find, and in the format that most customers want.The customer will be happier, support expenses will be reduced and the knowledge-enabled self-service solution conveys economies of scale.

How the Process Scales

In small organizations there will be no distinction between first point of contact and specialized, second tier support. Also, there is seldom be an identified Problem Management Unit to refer incidents which are resolved without the identification of a root cause. Analysts will be generalists with expertise in the entire array of support hardware and software CIs supported.

Since volumes are small there are few incentives to implement a "managed" approach. Instead, the organization will adopt an "Immediate Response Model" -ie. call will be handled as they arrive. With increasing volumes, there will be a need for determining the urgency and priority of incidents according to the business importance of the components experiencing difficulty. So, there should be a basic inventory of CI. This may take the form of an Excel spreadsheet listing all devices and their locations. More sophisticated implementation may attempt some rudimentary assessments of other configuration items which will be impacted by the listed device. Since the total volume is relatively small this inventory is controllable.

Maintaining the inventory will, of course, be problematic and probably beyond the scope of the Service Desk staff. Instead, it will be periodically updated as an assigned duty (say, monthly) and ancillary information such as the number of incident or changes to a device will not likely be recorded.

There are a number of Incident recording systems ideally suited to small organizations. At this scale they will typically be based upon an MS Outlook or MS Access form. there are Service Desk products available very cheaply based on these products. They do not scale well, nor are they well integrated with other service management areas. They do, however, provide rudimentary capability at a small cost and are a large step up from manual procedures.

As the organization get larger there are economies to be achieved through subject matter specialization. The organization develops specialized knowledge in such areas as desktop, network and application support. Or, rather than volume, a large, diverse product base will add "complexity" to the environment which will tax the ability of service agent's to remain knowledgable in all product lines. It is usually considered good practice to limit the number and range of similar product offerings. Both Gartner and META research advocate maintaining a discrete product line as a key factor in reducing support costs.

Concepts

Service Desk Organizational Role

The Service Desk acts as the primary 'Service Access Point (SAP)' for most users of IT services within the organization. There are several model for the performance of this role within the enterprise. The options are a Gatekeeper Model, Sorting Model, Dual Role Model, or the Service Event Filtering Model. There are pros and cons to each type.

Mature IT operations and service desk professionals have long understood the need to integrate their change management processes in with their incident management and problem management processes to achieve maximum effectiveness. For example, if a customer calls an airline to change a ticket, their itinerary, flight status and current flight operations data is all available to the ticket agent. If an IT technician queries the service desk about an outage, the event message, trouble ticket number and other event facts are available, so why not maintenance schedules, device locations, IP addresses, related applications and databases or upgrade tasks? Why aren't CIOs dealing with the complexity of IT management data in the same way that airlines deal with the complexity of flight data?

DM Review

Gatekeeper Model

Sorting Model

Dual Role Model

Service Event Filtering Model

With the Service Event Filtering Model, all service requests come through the Support Center where they enter every service request into the service management system, dispatch the service requests that they have no expertise in, and attempt to resolve all the others. They are also the keepers of the SLA by setting appropriate service expectations with each service event and basically direct all IT calls. All second and third level groups basically support the first level Support Center. Customers come to rely on the Support Center as their advocate. If administered properly user satisfaction is high, costs per call are low, career paths exists, service expectations are clear to everyone, employee 'churn' is low and life is generally good.

Service Request Controllership

Controlling "Ownership" of service request to ensure Tickets are not "lost"

Logging of Event Data

Including Incident Ticket, Service Requests, updating of CMDB, knowledge bases

Creation, Use and Maintenance of Knowledge Database

“Call escalations, long hold times, repeat calls, incorrect problem diagnosis, and unnecessary field dispatches are primary contributors to the skyrocketing costs of call centers. How can you improve your performance in all these areas without incurring the large costs associated with agent training? One way would be to magically replicate your best-performing agent several times. The other answer lies in effective knowledge management. By knowledge-powering your call center, you equip all your agents with the skills and expertise of your best agents. This ensures that when your customers call your call center, they are guaranteed fast, accurate, and consistent answers, regardless of the experience level of your agents, the interaction channel they use, or the time of day they call.”

Doing More with Less, Next-Generation Strategies and Best Practices for Customer Service, eGain Whitepaper

The benefits associated with an effective knowledge management process are many. Some examples of these include:

Increased efficiency through faster identification of potential solutions;
Increases the problem solving capacity of IT resources;
Allows reuse of existing knowledge and solutions;
Eliminates repetitive research;
Enables self-service for easy-to-access
solutions to end user via the web; and
Accelerates ramp-up time for new hires or outsourcers.

Knowledge management must begin with achievable goals and clarity of objectives and language to facilitate success. The implementation of this process should be broken down into manageable stages with a general timeframe for implementation, including organizational support, defined roles and responsibilities, established standards for the knowledge architecture, and culture of sharing and using knowledge.

Best practice organizations document the problem resolution workflow. To better control costs, the information in the knowledge database must be updated to ensure accuracy. Ensuring that controls are in place to keep information updated is critical because knowledge will frequently change. The procedures for handling these changes needs to be documented clearly and distributed. Determine also if the knowledge needs to be formatted into cases before it is used or is there some other type of documentation for training materials, procedures, etc. that the organization is familiar with that can be leveraged. If the overall knowledge management process is done well tha maintenance process should be simple. Maintenance involves correcting, refining, and expanding the knowledge base should be a single step reducing the lapse time between discovery and publication. In summary, the key best practices previously discussed include:

Outlining the criteria for success
Documenting problem resolution workflow
Developing standards and templates for entering cases
Creating controls for knowledge maintenance

Source of this chapter is Gartner - Key Ingredients of IT Service Management

Technology Assists

Self Help

Self-support technologies are a new set of solutions empowering users. These tools enable an end user to leverage established problem resolution knowledge. Early attempts at this were executed with FAQs, which provided answers for common outages or quick fixes, but often require users to leave the application and connect to enterprise servers. Today.s self help tools include the definition of common questions with pointers to the source of the answer to highly structured approaches used in problem resolution and product selection applications. These tools offer natural language matching between a user.s query and a predefined list of questions, symptoms, or requirements and then navigate the structured knowledge to provide an answer.

In addition to self-help, the adoption of self-healing has become more widespread among self- help capable systems. These are tools that maintain a root understanding of the distinct system and desktop profiles and can restore or heal to a functioning state. Registry settings and key application executables must be maintained in a desired desktop environment which, when corrupted, can be reset either automatically and independently of the IT service desk.

Contact Histories

In order to create a truly customer centric Service Desk, all the information available about your customers should be applied to build a customer-centric approach across all processes and functions - to build up a complete customer profile, offer products or services in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost and respond to inquiries based upon a history of that client's interactions.

It is highly beneficial for the Service Desk infrastructure to allow the storage, archival, and easy retrieval of the comprehensive customer interaction history. The Service Desk can use this information for queries, analysis, and reporting to align your strategic and operational decision-making processes with the feedback that you have received from your customers. Every interaction with the customer is an opportunity to know them better.

Remote Controls

Remote controls provide the ability to allow service agents to remotely access an end user.s desktop so both the agent and the user are viewing the same screen at the same time. An agent can even seize control of the impacted desktop when necessary and guide the user through the problem-solving process by entering appropriate commands. This method provides an excellent view for quick and efficient troubleshooting and makes it possible for organizations to centralize their end-user support functions. Using this function service desks agents can see exactly what is happening at the caller.s desktop. Most of these tools run over LAN connections rather than modem connections enabling authorized stations on a LAN to view each other.s screens and control each other.s activities.

E-mail Response Management System (ERMS)

E-mail management systems similar to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), provide control over incoming e-mail. The three main components of the ERMS include Intelligent Routing, Auto Response, and E-mail monitoring.

Intelligent routing determines which service desk agent should receive which e-mail based on skills and expertise area. Intelligent routing also allows for the use of prioritized routing rules to streamline or slow down e-mails in the queue based on who the customer is and the text contained within the message. Auto Response is the second component which is an automatic suggest function where an automatic e-mail is sent in response to a customer with suggestions on how their problem can be handled. The auto response sends a standard message of acknowledgement and the auto suggest sends suggested steps for resolution to fix the customer problem. E-mail monitoring allows the manager to establish the rules, which monitor outgoing e-mails. If the subject or content of the e-mail falls within the boundary of the rules, the e-mail can be sent to the manager first rather than the customer for auditing purposes.

ERMS and IVR have traditionally been found in mid-size to large organizations in the United States and have been growing within small organizations for several years.

Unified Messaging

As interfaces with customers become multi-media (phone, e-mail, Web chat, etc.) the need for service agents having consistent and integrated views of all conversations increases. The unified messaging queue integrates conversation instances for various mediums into a single indexed and filtered directory. Interactions with clients across mediums are merged and viewable so the service agents have all client history at their fingertips. In addition, text to speech and speech to text translations accompany the integration services to ease service desk playback and distribution of client interactions across various media.

The practices mentioned in this section describe the key operational components of the Service Desk. These are the near-term elements that must be built into the service desk to provide internal support to users and the business. In addition to these near-term elements, one must considered longer-term evolutionary phases defining where and how organizations are beginning to transform the service desk. The next section describes the longer-term view of how the IT Service Desk and Customer Service and Support people processes and technologies will work together.

Source of this chapter is Gartner - Key Ingredients of IT Service Management

Roles and Responsibilities

Service Desk Manager

The Service Desk Manager is responsible for the operations of the services desk - including

Service Desk staffing, training and staff performance review
the integrity of service desk processes and Service Desk participation in incident, change, problem and release management processes.
determines and approves Service Desk processes and participates in CAB review of any modifications
reviews performance of Service Desk against service commitments and explains issues to management

Service Desk Agent

The service desk agent responds to requests for service, including new or revised service offerings, incident reporting or informational queries. Increasingly, organizations are utilizing automated methods to initiate service requests (and even to register incidents which do not require immediate response) so that Service Desk Agents can increasingly devote greater attention to roles associated with the Service Coordinator.

responds to requests within specified timeframes
references Service Catalogue when required to establish parameters for Service Desk service
utilizes information sources on previously registered incident, the configuration of the infrastructure, existing and potential known errors to respond and resolve inquiries as quickly as possible
routes requests which cannot be resolved within a specified time interval to a designated source for further consideration
either retains OWNERSHIP of the request and continues to follow its' progress or TRANFSERS ownership to a designated group
track and record changes to the infrastructure into the CMDB

Incident Analyst

Notifies Service Desk when service request has been fulfilled or service restored
updates Incident Ticket to ensure that service restoration methods are recorded and available to Service Desk agent

Service Coordinator

In large Service Desks seeking to achieve efficiency through role specialization an Incident Coordinator may assume many of the administrative functions associated with service fulfillment and/or incident resolution. These will typically include the following specialized roles..

Overall ownership of a service Request or Trouble Ticket
Communications of incident and expected restoration timeframes to affected parties
arranging triages for major incidents (ie. Situations)
ensuring quality of finalized Trouble Tickets
arranging follow-up query of customer satisfaction and any complaints
works with Service Level Management in reviewing Service Desk metrics and problem areas

Note: that the Incident Coordinator does not need to be technically specialized. In essence, the Coordinator frees the Incident Analyst/Situation Manager of administrative functions thereby allowing them to devote more of their effort to the restoration undertaking.

Problem Management

responsible for integrity of Knowledge base(s)
control of Known Errors in infrastructure
responsible for removal of Known Errors and Problems from infrastructure
key participant in Major Crisis Management

Service Level Management

negotiates and makes known timeframes in which Service Desk processes are expected to meet
coordinates and releases Service Catalogue and ensures modifications to the catalogue adhere to established Change Management procedures

Performance Measurement

Key Performance Indicators

Number of repeat inquiries
Number of escalations
Number of inquiries
Time to resolve inquiries
Reduced trends in user inquiries requiring problem resolution
Cost per call

Metrics

Personnel and Process

Call profile

Type (e.g., help vs. request)
Priority (Four levels of severity)

Contact method

Percentage by telephone, e-mail, voice
mail, walk-in, fax

Breakdown by product/platform

Shared systems, desktop-tethered, mobile
In-house applications, purchased applications
Client/server, file server, personal productivity

Duration of calls

Average call duration
Breakdown of duration by segmentation (five, 10, 15 minutes, etc.)

Escalation

Percent escalated
Average number of hand-offs per escalation
Profile of typical escalation

Hand-offs

Percent handed off
Average number of bounces per hand-off
Profile of calls being handed off

Closure

Average time to closure
Percent closed using age segmentation (first call, two hours, etc.)
Percent resolved at Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3
Average number of hand-offs before closure

Phone response profile

Average answer time
Hold queue: percent of calls and average length in queue
Abandonment rate: Normal business hours, after hours, special event (outage)
Voice mail: percent of calls that roll into voice mail

SLA compliance

Percent of time in which the SLA is not met

Staffing:

Ratio: End users to help desk staff
Ratio: End users to tech support staff
Turnover percent by Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, managers

Time analysis (By hour of day, By day of week, By time of month)

User/customer satisfaction

Quick follow-up to actual help desk calls within one week of call
Snapshot survey of all end users
Detailed interviews with selected end users and managers

Metrics for Establishing Value With the Business Unit

Service requests/calls
Call avoidance by severity type
Estimated cost savings in terms of resources and business value
First-point-of-contact resolution to increase end-user productivity
Workstation availability
Network availability

Measurement Issues

Processes

Service Desk Process Summary

Controls

Inputs

Ticket

Activities

Receive Query

Outputs

Service Request
Incident Ticket
Match to Known incidents

Mechanisms

Service Request/incident databases
Knowledge Bases

Inputs

Controls

Mechanisms

Outputs

Service Desk Activities

Appendix

Terms

Process Maturity

Terms

Term	Definition
Abandon Rate	The percentage of total calls received that self-release from ringing or queue before reaching a support team member.
Agent	A common term used to indicate a Help Desk or Support Center employee whose primary job responsibility is responding to customer calls. These employees typically provide first-level or second level support.
Architecture	An organized framework consisting of principles, rules, conventions, and standards that serve to guide development and construction activities such that all components of the intended structure will work together to satisfy the ultimate objective of the structure.
Asset Management	Implementing a set of operating and accounting procedures intended to maximize the return on investment (ROI) of the equipment assets of an organization, especially capital assets.
Assignment	The process by which the responsibility for taking the next action for managing and resolving a customer service request is designated to a specific individual, function, or organization. Typically, the Help Desk or Customer Support Center continues to monitor the service request and tracks it until the request is closed.
Auto Attendant	A system that allows callers to route their calls to a known telephone extension number or obtain the desired extension number from the system. A touch-tone phone or speech recognition system is required. This feature is typically integrated with an automatic call distribution (ACD) system.
average length of call	The average time required to process a customer call, from initial receipt to final closure, including both on-phone and off-phone time.
average speed of answer (ASA)	The average time required for an analyst or an appropriate automated response tool (such as an IVR) to respond to an incoming call.
average talk time (ATT)	The average time per call that an analyst spends actually talking with a customer on the phone. This is a common ACD statistic.
average wait time	The average length of time a caller holds before abandoning the call or being helped by an agent. Also called average hold time.
Baseline	A standard for comparisons. A baseline is a reference position for measuring progress in process improvement. The baseline is usually used to differentiate between a current and a future representation.
Benchmarking	A method of measuring processes against those of recognized leaders. It helps establish priorities and targets leading to process improvement. Identification: It is undertaken by identifying processes to benchmark and their key characteristics; Determining who to benchmark; Collecting and analyzing data from direct contact, surveys, interviews, technical journals, and advertisements; Determining the "best of class" from each benchmark item identified; Compare the Process to the Benchmarks: Evaluating the process in terms of the benchmarks; Setting the improvement goals.
Best Practices	A way or method of accomplishing a business function or process that is considered to be superior to all other known methods.
Bulletin Board	A display, usually placed strategically throughout the customer support area as well as customer areas and used to notify personnel of problems or the current status of systems.
call cycle time	The total time required to process a customer call, including call logging and initial diagnosis, research, resolution, follow up, and closing the call. Note that the term call cycle time limits reporting to calls only versus all service requests.
call resolution rate (CRR)	The percentage of calls captured that are resolved within each support level or by the Help Desk or Customer Support Center overall.
call routing	The processes used to transfer a call from one individual, function, organization, or location to another either by a Support Center employee or automatically, based on a set of predefined rules.
call screening	The process of collecting information from the caller including name, phone number, location, and specific request for service, then routing the call to first-level support.
call volume	The total number of inbound and outbound calls within some meaningful timeframe or category.
calls per agent	The average number of calls received by an agent within some meaningful timeframe or category.
calls per period	Call volume per time period. Typical time periods Help Desks or Customer Support Centers report on include hour, shift, day, week, month, quarter, and year.
Category, Type and Item (CTI)	Method for Classification of a group of Change documents according to three-fold hierarchical coding structure used by many organizations.
Change	Any action resulting in a new status of one or more of the Configuration Items.
Change Advisory Board (CAB)	A group of people who can give expert advice to the Change Manager on the implementation of Changes. The rigor with which changes are considered is determined by the evaluated risk associated with the change. The degree of risk (as well as customer concerns and financial considerations) will determine the authority charged with approving changes into the infrastructure. These bodies are:
Change Calendar	A documented record of the sequence of steps involved in building a release (implementing a change).
Change Management	The policies, procedures, and business practices used to control and introduce change into a technical and business environment, such as hardware and software upgrades.
Configuration Item (CI)	Component of an infrastructure - or an item, such as a Request for Change, associated with an infrastructure - that is (or is to be) under the control of Configuration Management.CIs may vary widely in complexity, size and type, from an entire system (including all hardware, software and documentation) to a single module or a minor hardware component.
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)	A database that contains all relevant details of each CI and details of the important relationships between CIs.
Coverage	The normal hours of operation of a support organization.
Customer	Any person who comes in contact with a Help Desk or Support Center employee in person, over the phone, via e-mail, or by other communication channels. Customers may be internal (employees of the company) or external (people outside the company who request information or help).
Customer Interface	The tools and techniques the customer and Help Desk or Customer Support Center use to communicate, such as the telephone, e-mail, fax, direct access, or call management system.
Decision Tree	A type of expert system comprised of a branching structure of questions and possible responses designed to lead an agent to an appropriate solution to a customer's problem or provide needed information. Decision-tree structures resemble an organizational hierarchy. Decision trees are most appropriate where the problem type is broad and shallow. Decision-tree systems work well for entry-level agents, because they walk the agents through specific questions and answers. However, senior agents may not want to step through each branch, since they usually know some of the questions and answers; they may feel that working through the tree process actually slows them down
Diagnose	Determining the cause of a problem or type of information needed and the actions that must be taken to resolve it.
Diagnostic Aids	Diagnostic tools such as error log interpreters, crash analyzers, or network monitors that assist the Help Desk agent in rapidly isolating the cause of a caller's problem.
Dispatch	A call management function in which Service Desk or Customer Support Center agents determine whether the caller is entitled to service, determine the nature of the problem or type of information needed, log the call, and route the caller to the first level support function. This function is frequently automated through the use of ACD systems.
Emergency Change	Used for production changes that have a business or system driver that requires immediate implementation, regardless of time. This occurs when the business risk of not changing the production environment out-weighs the risk of making the change and the change cannot wait for the next standard Release Date.
Environment	A collection of hardware, software, network and procedures that work together to provide a discrete type of computer service. There may be one or more environments on a physical platform e.g. test, production. An environment has unique features and characteristics that dictate how they are administered in similar, yet diverse, manners.
Escalation	A defined management process in which a service request's priority is changed due to the impact or timing of the request, customer input, or duration. Escalation is a management process for giving a call more priority; urgency, or resources. Though often used interchangeably with elevation, the escalation process differs from elevation.
Expert System	A type of knowledge-based system that processes information in an area of expertise and performs functions in a manner similar to a human who is expert in that field. An expert system can solve problems by drawing inferences from a collection of information that is based on human experience and problems the system has previously encountered. Expert systems diagnose the problem, then advise the customer on how to correct the problem. Most expert systems fall into three categories: case-based,decision tree, and rules-based systems.
FIFO	First-In / First-Out: A queuing technique that assures the next item or person to be handled is the one that has waited the longest. This is the technique most Help Desks and Customer Support Centers use. It is typically automated by using ACDs.
Generalist	An agent with broad knowledge of a range of technologies or subject areas. Many first-level support agents are generalists.
Handshake	The formal process of one support level or function transferring a service request to another support level to ensure the request remains assigned until resolved.
Impact Analysis	A quantitative research method in which a study is conducted into the effects that an error may have on the other parts of the configuration and the subsequent consequences for the service level, taking into account the risks of such an error occurring as well as the severity of the error.
Incident	Any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and that causes, or may cause, an interruption to, or a reduction in, the quality of that service.
Infrastructure	The sum of an organization’s IT-related hardware, software, data communication facilities, procedures, documentation and people.
IVR	interactive voice response: Systems that allow callers to input information into a touch-tone telephone, get a response from the computer, or perform an action based on choices the customer makes. IVRs are typically integrated with other telecommunications systems.
Knowledge Base	An accumulation of data or history from and/or for support issues.
Known Error	A condition in the IT infrastructure in which a certain Configuration Item has been identified as the cause of a (potential) degradation in the service level agreed upon.
LIFO	A queuing technique in which the next item or person to be handled or retrieved is the item most recently placed in the queue.
Log	To formally record basic information related to the receipt of a new service request, usually in a computer-based problem management system.
MTTR	meantime to repair: Average length of time for problem resolution.
Objectives	Quantified, specific statements noting what the Service Desk or Customer Support Center will accomplish, such as /11 reduce total cost of support by 15%" or "decrease customer downtime by 25 hours per quarter."
Open Requests	Service requests received and logged but not yet resolved; the difference between the number of calls logged and the number of calls closed.
Ownership	Usually used in the context of the Service Desk or Support Center agent who is assigned to the service request until satisfactory resolution is met, regardless of where the service request has been assigned.
Priority	The relative assessment of an activity in relation to other activities. The characteristic of preceding, or having priority over, something or someone else. Priority consists of impact, urgency and expected effort.
Problem	A condition of the IT infrastructure that is identified through incidents with similar symptoms, or a significant incident that is indicative for an error of which the cause is not yet known.
Process	A connected series of actions, activities, Changes etc. performed by agents with the intent of satisfying a purpose or achieving a goal.
Process Control	The process of planning and regulating, with the objective of performing a process in an effective and efficient way.
Protocol	Specifications describing the rules and procedures that products (such as fax machines, modems, and servers and clients) should follow to communicate with one another or to perform functions on a network. If products from different manufacturers use the same protocols, the devices can communicate.
Queue	A "waiting line," such as for problem reports that agents will handle. Items can be queued for processing within a computer, or customers can be on hold in a telephone queue.
Release	A collection of new and/or changed CIs which are tested and introduced into the live environment together.
Request for Change (RFC)	Form, or screen, used to record details of a request for a Change to any CI within an infrastructure or to procedures and items associated with the infrastructure.
Risk	A measure of the exposure to which an organization may be subjected. This is a combination of the likelihood of a business disruption occurring and the possible loss that may result from such business disruption.
Role	A set of responsibilities, activities and authorizations.
Service Level Agreement	A written agreement between a service provider and Customer(s) that documents agreed services and the levels at which they are provided at various costs.
SME	Subject Matter Expert - A support resource highly knowledgeable in the infrastructure components undergoing a change.
System	An integrated composite that consists of one or more of the processes, hardware, software, facilities and people, that provides a capability to satisfy a stated need or objective.
Transfer	Passing an incident to a more capable resource after some preliminary handling.
Urgent Change	An Urgent Change is used for production changes that have a business or system driver that requires immediate implementation, regardless of time. This occurs when the business risk of not changing the production environment out-weighs the risk of making the change and the change cannot wait for the next standard Release Date. A change is considered Urgent if there is a significant detrimental impact to the customer experience (external to the organization), with no reasonable workaround, and the issue causes a financial impact AND/OR the issue keeps one or more people from doing their job. An Urgent Change requires the approval of Corporate Emergency CAB.
User	The consumer of IT services. This consumer may originate from any of the managerial or operational levels of the organization.

CMMI Maturity Levels

Maturity Level	Description
1 Initial	The organization has recognised that a process supported by tools and personnel is required in order to respond to user queries and manage problem resolution. There is, however, no standardized process and only reactive support is provided. Management does not monitor user queries, problems or trends. There is no escalation process to ensure that problems are resolved.
2 Managed	There is organizational awareness of the need for a service desk function. Assistance is available on an informal basis through a network of knowledgeable individuals. These individuals have some common tools available to assist in problem resolution. There is no formal training and communication on standard procedures, and responsibility is left to the individual. However, there is consistent communication on the overall issues and the need to address them.
3 Defined	There is organizational awareness of the need for a service desk function. Assistance is available on an informal basis through a network of knowledgeable individuals. These individuals have some common tools available to assist in problem resolution. There is no formal training and communication on standard procedures, and responsibility is left to the individual. However, there is consistent communication on the overall issues and the need to address them
4 Quantitatively Managed	There is a full understanding of the benefits of a service desk at all levels of the organization and the function has been established in appropriate organizational units. The tools and techniques are automated with a centralised knowledge base of problems and solutions. The service desk staff closely interacts with the problem management staff. The responsibilities are clear and effectiveness is monitored. Procedures for communicating, escalating, and resolving problems are established and communicated. service desk personnel are trained and processes are improved through the use of task-specific software. Root causes of problems are identified and trends are reported, resulting in timely correction of problems. Processes are under improvement and enforce best internal practice.
5 Optimized	The service desk function is established, well organized and takes on a customer service orientation, by being knowledgeable, customer focussed and helpful. Extensive, comprehensive FAQs are an integral part of the knowledge base. Tools are in place to enable a user to self-diagnose and resolve problems. IT is used to create, manage and improve access to automated knowledge bases that support problem resolution. Advice is consistent and problems are resolved quickly within a structured escalation process. Management utilizes a pro-active notification process and trend analysis to prevent and monitor problems. Processes have been refined to the level of best external practices, based on the results of continuous improvement and maturity modeling with other organizations.