Often we are faced with the requirement for defining KPI's for IT departments . Here is a guide for defining KPI for small businesses

1. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for Small Information Technology Departments
Due credit to Michael Cruse
Individuals, departments, and companies must track their performance in order to have a
baseline and comparator for improvement over time. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are
the baseline of understanding needed to determine performance metrics and will keep
individuals and groups on the competitive edge of performance.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of KPIs for individuals and departments.
After all, “if you do not have a good baseline and understanding of basic performance
metrics, you will not know when you are slipping into mediocrity or worse.” I received
several e-mails asking what KPIs I would track in a small IT department. Since I received
several requests, I thought I would do a short post on the topic.
In a small IT department, you do not want to burden the team with a bunch of new tracking
activities. These should add a minimal amount of time to daily activities and take only a few
hours a month to document in a report format.
Individual and/or Team KPIs
1. Average Technical Support Tickets Closed Per Day by Month
Current Year Verses Prior Year
This graph should show the average number for technical support tickets your team
closed each business day by month. I would graph current year and prior year. You
will need consistent rules about what is entered as a support ticket. If you do not have
a technical support ticket tracking system, you can look at one of the open
source solutions or use Outlook task folder in a common Exchange mailbox, folder, or
public folder.
2. Total Closed Support Tickets Verses Helpdesk Hours
Current Year Verses Prior Year
If you outsource this function then this graph will be very insightful and valuable
when it comes time for annual contract renewal. I also use it to help me manage the
support hours by making sure that we maintain productivity standards and not just
adding billable hours.
3. New Support Tickets Created or Open Support Tickets
Current Year Verses Prior Year
I like to track open technical support tickets over time. This helps to see the general
open workload over time. If I see this number heading north then I know it is time to
add team members providing that my average close rates are holding steady or
increasing slightly.

2. 4. Average Time to Close a Technical Support Ticket per Month
Current Year Verses Prior Year
I simply want to know how long on average it takes us to close new technical support
tickets. This goes to my service level commitments to the users we support. Are we
getting the job done timely? We have to know.
Systems KPIs
1. System Up-time Percent
Rolling 12 months
We have identified our core systems and targeted a 99.5 percent up-time. Any time
one of these core systems is off-line unexpectedly the amount of time is logged. At
the end of the month, we simply divide the total number of failed hours by the total
number of operational hours in the month to see how we did.
2. Production Storage
Rolling 24 months
The goal here is to help justify the purchase of additional storage when needed. Being
able to show how storage demand has increased over time enables me to more easily
acquire the new assets when the time comes. Obviously, we have policies around data
storage and purging, but the reality is that is never enough to keep data from
eventually exceeding current capacity.
3. Production Load
Rolling 12 months
Here I would want to track the total number of users utilizing the server environment
and the average peak CPU load. As the user base increases and becomes more
demanding on the infrastructure, you should see the peak load on the servers steadily
increase or hold higher levels for longer periods. Having this type of graph over time
showing the increased pressure on the core server environment allows for easier
acquisition of capital equipment. Be very particular on what servers you choose to
track for this KPI.
4. Bandwidth utilization
Rolling 12 months
In the small environment, I have never been able to get close to capacity of a modern
Ethernet network. Therefore, I am really tracking just Internet bandwidth. I use a
utility like MRTG to log and generate the charts based on the information it gathers
from our router.
This is not a comprehensive list of all possible KPIs for a small IT department to track. These
KPIs should give a good insight into the operational efficiencies of the department while not
being administratively burdensome. I would have no problem taking these KPIs along with a
decently written 1 to 2 page monthly report and send them off to the CFO or CEO for review.
I would also be sure to review this information on a monthly basis with my team and even
post the charts in a common IT work area.
What are some of the KPIs that you track for your team or as an individual?
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