They say 'quality over quantity,' but quantifying IT performance is a good shout too Every year in living memory I’ve sat in the obligatory “how to complete your annual goals in the HR system” meeting, and each time I’ve been told: make sure you make your objectives “SMART” – Specific, Measurable, Achievable and so on. Our HR cousins have been telling us this for years, and yet we seem to continue to measure …
"I'm pleased to announce that network uptime per IT budget dollar is 27% better than it was this time last year."
"Didn't we cut the IT budget by 80% last year? Also, is anyone else having trouble getting on the internet?"
"I'm also pleased to announce that we have had only two suicides in the IT department all year! It's our best year yet!"
"Didn't we reduce the IT department to two people last year?"
"Why don't you try viewing the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, Fred?"
>And if I’m on your board I’ll be asking you why, given all this money we’re giving you for these systems, the graph isn’t showing it getting consistently better.
Given how much gets paid in business rates and office servicing each year - is the bin collection any better this year than last year?
Sometimes it can be useful to reply to such questions with one that challenges their preconceptions.
The more visible they are, the worse they are. The best ones have set everything up with enough redundancy and monitoring that problems don't become apparent to the end users, so they never need to play hero and swoop in to fix things.
Its like trying to measure the performance of a fireman, if a fireman was only responsible for fighting fires in buildings he's responsible for the inspections of.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
