The assessment based on KPI (Key Performance Indicators) indicators is applied to determine the work results in companies. KPI is a set of key indicators which show an efficiency of company activity or its separate structural unit, which promotes to the achievement of strategic and tactical goals. The use of KPI provides to companies a tool to assess their current status and determine the degree of compliance with the implementation of a previously defined development strategy.
Conventionally, in practice, the scheme of KPI application is as follows: the goals are set for an employee, and if they were achieved, he receives an appropriate reward (bonus, non-financial promotion, etc.). Otherwise, there is no such reward. This system allows you to make the assessment of staff performance as efficient as possible.
The conformity of the set goals is the key condition for the application of KPI with the following criteria:
• concreteness;
• measurability;
• reachability;
• relevance;
• time constraints.
KPI should be determined in accordance with the nature and specificity of the individual employee activities or the unit generally. This condition is fully consistent with the activities of IT departments.
So for the IT department dealing with technical support of IT systems users, KPI can be:
• Solving problems in accordance with SLA (Service Level Agreement). The indicator is determined in quantitative terms.
• Workmanship. This indicator is determined on the basis of assessing the degree of user satisfaction based on the results of solving individual tasks or general surveys. Another option is based on the results of a planned audit based on comments. The disadvantage of this indicator is the presence of a subjective factor in the assessment of individual users. Therefore, it’s necessary to take into account different time slices, samples by user groups, evaluating the result, etc., when developing indicators for assessing the quality of work.
KPI may be as follows for the IT department responsible for product development and IT project implementation:
• The compliance degree of the developed product with the task.
• Fit for budget.
• The number of errors in the program code.
• Turnaround time.
The IT manager’s KPI is made up of the units’ activity key goals within area of his responsibility.
In general, IT department KPI can be summarized as follows:
• The degree of the internal or external customer’s satisfaction.
• Compliance with the deadlines for the work performance according to the set technical specification, SLA, etc.
• Quality of performed work.
• Reduced costs and risks.
• Minimization the number of errors.
It is important not only to set goals and check their implementation by the results of work in the application of KPI. The key attention should be paid to the analysis of results, the reasons, why any goals weren’t achieved, the revision of the approach to the definition of goals in the future. In addition, we must remember that there must be a link between the fulfillment of IT goals and the strategic goals of the whole company. In this case, the KPI scorecard will be the most effective and efficient.
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