Measuring the Best Performers in IT
"Rock Stars"…we all love these producers. The company gets great value from these people. They are the work horses. They're smart, competent and confident and your customers love them. You want to keep them. In a poor economy, you want to keep your rock starts and attract more rock stars from your competition.
"Stars in Training"….offer them training and mentoring to get them to realize their potential. They are typically younger and have a desire to grow and excel.
"Solid Citizens"…dependable, competent, maybe don't have all the skills or don't push themselves like the "Rock Stars"…ok with being a "Solid Citizen"…nothing wrong with that.
"Problem Children"…all leader have experience with these folks. It's some times difficult to terminate poor performers… Giva worked with a customer that was a major international law firm that would not terminate poor performing IT support people. They did not have any objective data. Only anecdotes of information. They feared an age discrimination lawsuit. They had no hard data to support the poor performance. After 6 months of using Giva reports, they terminated three people in IT. The IT management provided the Human Resources dept. with objective data from Giva reports. The conservative firm felt confident they had objective data to support the terminations. This significantly lifted morale in the IT groups. Terminating poor performers always lifts morale. On an emotional level, people never like to see terminations, but when others are unfairly carrying the workload of a poor performer, etc., morale is always lifted and motivation is increased. Moreover, team morale is killed when competent people are terminated because of politics, personality, favoritism, and other subjective measures.
Download the webinar slides:
Who to Reward in IT or Customer Service
Outstanding leaders focus on "high leverage points" where they can make changes and exert influence. High leverage points provide a disproportionately higher payback for every unit of effort/time invested vs. low leverage or no leverage points. Said another way..they want a big bang for buck for effort/attention so they look for high leverage activities where they can have a big impact.
High Leverage Points: A law firm or hospital internal IT help desk will have significant influence on the productivity of attorneys and health care professionals which are revenue producers for their respective entities.…it's a high leverage point. Another example is a customer service organization since it has significant influence on customer decisions to purchase more products/services. Customer facing personnel are in a very influential/critical position. Sales people generate revenue, but excellent customer service people keep customers coming back with their checkbooks…or not coming back.
Download the webinar slides:
Performance Incentives-IT Help Desk
Why are metrics important?
-Performance- what to be able to draw distinctions between people and groups for incentive programs. Linking incentive programs to subjective criteria will kill morale of any organization. Without objective measures, favoritism and personality "rule" instead of performance. Circulate the name(s) of winners along with a copy of the report(s)/metric(s) documenting why the they won and how everybody else performed. Can't improve if can't measure! Increase individual and group morale with metrics.
-Benchmarking - Industry and competitors for continuous improvement. Easy to get industry data, but need to collect data about your company with your call tracking system to compare with industry data.
-Financial…for resource allocation plans, workload balance, add/subtract headcount, business cases for capital and operating expenses. Tie your team's performance to revenue as much as possible. How many revenue producers did the support organization kept productive? How happy are out customers so they keep on buying?
Download the webinar slides:
Tough Questions to Ask Any Software Vendor Before Purchase
Continuing from yesterday, here are 10 more groups of penetrating questions to ask SaaS Customer Service and IT Help Desk vendors to determine their true character.
11. Are there maintenance windows of downtime for routine server administration? When are they? Will the service always be unavailable during these windows or just some times? Will I get notifications when the service will be down during a maintenance window? How much advance notice?
12. What contract lengths do you offer, and what are the discounts that apply? Is there any flexibility in payment terms? What are renewal terms?
13. How quickly can we be up and running on your product? Does it work "out of the box"? Will it take a week, a month, a quarter or six months or longer to deploy? Will you provide an implementation plan in writing and commit to it? Who will initially pay for set-up, customization and configuration costs? Who will pay these costs on an ongoing basis? Do we need to learn a programming language to administer and customize your product? If so, what is the approximate size of the developer community; and what is the average hourly rate?
14. What is exactly included in annual software maintenance? Will we receive major releases or just bug fixes and minor enhancements? Can you please show us exactly where this is documented in your SaaS License Agreement?
15. Of course, we hope that we do not have to do this, but my company may want to cut costs in the future by not paying your annual software maintenance. Our CFO is concerned about commitments for ongoing fees. Can we stop paying software maintenance any time we want, but continue to use the software licenses? Do we need a license key from you each year? What happens if we stop paying annual software maintenance, and then we want to start paying again to obtain support? Do we have to "back pay" all the fees for software maintenance we did not previously pay?
16. What is your roadmap for future product development? What product enhancements are you planning to make over the next 12 months? How can my company be assured that you will deliver on this roadmap? What are our options if you do not deliver?
17. If we have a support issue that requires some reconfiguration, does your company charge professional services fees for this work, or is it covered under routine support?
18. We will probably learn a lot about your product after using it for the first six months or even a year. If we want to do additional customization and configuration work after the initial deployment is completed, does your company charge professional service fees for this work ,or is it covered under routine support?
19. Is a source code escrow service available? (This requires that the vendor place their source code in escrow, so that it is available if they are no longer in business.) Is there a fee for this?
20. Does the vendor ask you about your pain points? Are they interested in understanding your requirements, and will they prepare a demonstration of their capabilities based on these requirements at no cost or obligation?
Download white paper at:
Key Questions To Ask Software or Cloud Vendors
What questions should you ask vendors to determine their true character?
Here are 10 groups of penetrating questions to ask Customer Service and IT Help Desk vendors to determine their true character.
Ask these questions early in your qualification process to focus on the vendors that will be there for you long after they have your company's money.
Use these questions to poke and prod at your long list of vendors, and then listen very carefully when they speak. What you learn will save you a great deal of time and money. Make sure to get their responses in writing!
- After my company pays for your software licenses, what if we become dissatisfied for any reason? Perhaps the product does not work as demonstrated or promised. What will you do?
- What if better technology comes along after we purchase your software licenses? Perhaps your company is not keeping up with evolving industry standard enhancements. Are we stuck with your software licenses? Can we trade in your software licenses and receive a pro rata cash refund to purchase a product that meets our evolving needs?
- How quickly can we be up and running on your product? Does it work "out of the box"?
Will it take a week, a month, a quarter or six months or longer to deploy? Will you provide an implementation plan in writing and commit to it? Who will initially pay for set-up, customization and configuration costs? Who will pay these costs on an ongoing basis? Do we need to learn a programming language to administer and customize your product? If so, what is the approximate size of the developer community, and what is the average hourly rate?
- Please prepare an estimated Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your product over four years. Consider all the acquisition and lifetime costs of ownership. Document all your assumptions; and we will provide you with our assumptions for the analysis, as needed. How does your product TCO compare with the other companies we are evaluating? Are training, set-up, customization, configuration, support, integration and any usage fees all included in this TCO?
- What exactly is included in annual software maintenance? Will we receive major releases or just bug fixes and minor enhancements? Can you please show us exactly where this is documented in your Software License Agreement?
- Of course, we hope that we do not have to do this, but my company may want to cut costs in the future by not paying your annual software maintenance. Our CFO is concerned about commitments for ongoing fees. Can we stop paying software maintenance any time we want, but continue to use the software licenses? Do we need a license key from you each year? What happens if we stop paying annual software maintenance, and then we want to start paying again to obtain support? Do we have to "back pay" all the fees for software maintenance we did not previously pay?
- What is your roadmap for future product development? How can my company be assured that you will deliver on this roadmap? What are our options if you do not deliver?
- If we have a support issue that requires some reconfiguration, does your company charge professional services fees for this work, or is it covered under routine support?
- We will probably learn a lot about your product after using it for the first six months or even a year. If we want to do additional customization and configuration work after the initial deployment is completed, does your company charge professional service fees for this work, or is it covered under routine support?
- Does your company provide Respond and Resolve Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for support service requests that your company is committed by contract to meet? If so, how can we measure if your company is meeting or exceeding these SLAs? Can we terminate our contract if your company does not meet these support SLAs? Is there a clause in your contract to allow termination for material breach of support SLAs? How do I get support? Do I have to send an email, open a web request, or can I call your company and speak with a live person? What are your standard support hours? Do you offer extended support hours for evenings, weekends, and non-USA regions? Is there a fee for this?
Download White Paper:
Compare BMC Numara Track-It! vs. Giva
Replace Numara Track-It! help desk software with Giva Cloud Computing
Has your organization outgrown Track-It!? We know that you need to measure the IT help desk performance with metrics, charts and graphs to reward stakeholders and take action when necessary. Our visual tools allow you to analyze data and proactively highlight trends and patterns early on.
Each report features our Giva Easy Three-Click Reporting™ engine that allows you to quickly build standard and completely customizable Report queries.
- Intuitive human friendly Report user interface
- Export Reports to Adobe® PDF (with color output) and CSV file
- Email Reports on-the-fly
- Schedule Reports for automatic email delivery
- WYSIWYG browser printing
Eliminate BMC Service Desk Express Upgrades & Maintenance
Replace BMC Service Desk Express with Giva Cloud Computing
Is the very high cost of BMC Service Desk Express consulting, upgrades and software maintenance not in your IT budget?
With Giva, BMC Service Desk Express customers on average experienced a:
- 60% decrease in TCO
- 90% decrease in implementation time and cost
- Eliminated servers, software and upgrade costs
- Decreased headcount required to maintain service desk application
Get a quote from your BMC Service Desk Express consultant and then contact Giva.
Eliminate FrontRange HEAT Upgrades & Maintenance Costs
Replace FrontRange HEAT with Giva Cloud Computing
Is the very high cost of FrontRange HEAT consulting, upgrades and software maintenance not in your IT budget?
With Giva, FrontRange HEAT customers on average experienced a:
- 60% decrease in annual TCO
- 90% decrease in implementation time and cost
- Eliminated servers, software and upgrade costs
- Decreased headcount required to maintain service desk application
Download this business case that compares Giva to FrontRange:
Business Case to Replace FrontRange with Giva Cloud Computing
Eliminate FrontRange ITSM Software Upgrades & Maintenance
Replace FrontRange ITSM with Giva Cloud Computing
Is the very high cost of FrontRange ITSM consulting, upgrades and software maintenance not in your IT budget?
With Giva, FrontRange ITSM customers on average experienced a:
- 60% decrease in TCO
- 90% decrease in implementation time and cost
- Eliminated servers, software and upgrade costs
- Decreased headcount required to maintain service desk application
Download this business case that compares Giva to FrontRange:
Business Case to Replace FrontRange with Giva Cloud Computing
Maintenance of the Knowledgebase is Critical to Success
Click to download a White Paper on Knowledge Base ROI
Plan to have dedicated resources such as knowledge experts to build and maintain the knowledge. Regular and timely maintenance of the knowledgebase is critical to success. Be sure to build in a mechanism that identifies gaps in content (information sought but not found), and a process for filling those gaps. If people repeatedly fail to find what they are looking for they will stop using the system.
KM requires cultural change
You will need buy-in at all levels, and this may require cultural change. The people that are going to use the tools have to be part of the design. Do not make this management decision in a vacuum. Include some people from the various groups that will directly or indirectly use the system.
Sometimes staffs have a fear that management will use the knowledge management process to replace people. If your staff thinks that is what you are trying to do, then you really need to address that head-on. Once you convince your team that current head count reduction is not the goal, you need to look for and plan the motivation for each party. After all, you are asking people to shift from a system where being a tower of knowledge is rewarded to a system where they share their expertise with everybody. Each party will have a unique motivation to embrace knowledge management. For example, your frontline tech will have a different motivational schema than your third level technician. The frontline tech is not going to have to ask the second line tech as many questions, and can resolve more problems faster. The second level tech is not going to get as many of the common questions. Level 3 researchers will not have to start at ground zero when handed a problem by level two, because they know Level 1 and 2 have covered all the intermediate steps. Therefore, as you look across the company everybody has a different interest and you have to protect all of them. Failing to see how knowledge management is going to fit in to the rest of the organization is really a mistake. You must invest the time and energy to understand the culture, identify motivations and ensure change happens where needed.
Champions are important
To be successful, your knowledge initiative must have several champions within the organization. These individuals believe in the initiative, enthusiastically advocate it and have the influence to "make things happen." Initiatives that have no champion generally do not get off the ground. Those with one champion are at serious risk. Losing your champion can spell disaster for you project.
This is a real problem for knowledge management initiatives, due to their typically long duration. If the initiative champion transfers, retires or leaves the company, initiative often loses its momentum and the initiative may falter as someone else takes it over. What knowledge experts like to see is a dual sponsorship: one at the operational level and one at the executive level. Therefore, if an operations manager decides the company really needs knowledge management, that manager should find somebody on the executive staff that will agree to support the vision. By having that dual track of vision, the initiative is less likely to derail.
Click to download a White Paper on Knowledge Base ROI
Newer Entires 1 ... 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Older Entries