The CIO's First 30 Days, Part III

Michael Wood
September 23, 2008

PART III - Assesing IT Service Levels--Satisfaction, Issues, Complexities

This is the final installment of the three part series on the strategies and tactics a newly appointed CIO can use during their first 30 days on the job to help insure their success. In this installment we will be looking at assessing how existing service levels impact how the CIO shapes their go forward strategy for IT. Once again, the answers to each question are accompanied with strategy shaping suggestions and guidelines.

What form do Service Level Agreements (SLAs) take?

Question: Is there a complete lack of SLAs?

Strategy: No need to panic. Service Level Agreements are great but only if the culture is open and supportive of the idea. Sometimes trying to implement SLAs can backfire and become a sticking point of great angst. You don’t want to create any anxiety as the new CIO since most times it gets interpreted as you being difficult to work with. However, if IT’s relationship is faltering with peers and users, then an SLA may be just the thing to indicate that the past doesn’t equal the future. Start with a very simple approach, keeping the language simple and the service level promises moderate. Allow the SLA concept to evolve and mature.

Question: Are there Verbal understandings only?

Strategy: Verbal understandings are great as long as the environment is cordial and supportive. However, should politics be in play (as they usually are) no understanding is often preferable to verbal deals. As part of your one-on-one meetings with peers and users, be sure to facilitate their sharing of expectations for, like it or not, those represent the “verbal deal.” Don’t take exception to anything that is said. Instead, take the knowledge away with you and use it to help formulate whether formal SLAs are needed. Often an informal memorandum memorializing what you heard with a thank you note for their time will keep everyone on a positive note.

Question: Do SLAs exist, but they are not used?

Strategy: A dead SLA is like having no SLA at all. Here you will want to understand the history of their creation and the reasons for their non-use. It could very well be that in the culture you are in, SLAs are a solution in search of a problem and that apathy may reign supreme. I have found it far more constructive and rewarding to promise little and deliver much, allowing the delivery of value to speak much louder than any agreement ever could.

Question: Are formal SLAs integrated into performance incentives?

Strategy: With formal SLAs in place you can assume that the IT group is more disciplined and mature than most. The question though is, is that view shared by the CEO, your peers and the user community at large. If the last CIO left under favorable circumstances then you might be lucky. However, a formal IT group that is seen as misaligned and ineffective is most likely also seen as bureaucratic and inflexible in which SLAs are merely a validation of the perception. What’s important here is to take the pulse of your constituencies to determine if they find the SLAs to be a boon or a boondoggle. If eyes roll when SLAs are mentioned, you might want to kill the program and replace it with more active and engaging face-time by yourself and your user-facing staff.

How are Service Levels Measured?

Question: Are Service Levels measured by noise (i.e., squeaky wheel gets the grease)?

Strategy: By noise I mean complaints and grumblings among the user community. If the IT group runs on current urgencies and damage control, then things are not good. Unfortunately, this mode is difficult to break as IT has usually trained the user community well in expecting staff to jump through hoops if they appear unhappy. Consider the immediate implementation of a help desk and incident tracking function. Begin the retraining process within 30 days of sending all calls for assistance through the help desk, even if your own staff has to call it in. Begin compiling service statistics and publish IT’s support track record metrics. You will need these stats to educate yourself as to what the real support issues are and to demonstrate that you are again proactive approach to leading the IT group.

Question: Are Service Levels measured by the opinions of Department Heads towards IT?

Strategy: Having your success as CIO driven by the opinions of your peers can be deadly. All too often the popularity of the CIO is the measure of their success. Unfortunately, you are apt to have to take some actions that will not support your popularity. While in the final analysis a CIO can’t survive is intensely disliked by peers, they can take actions to balance those opinions with facts, which in turn seems to reduce negative noise levels. The real key to using a quantitative, fact-based approach to shaping opinions is that you have to be very objective and accurate. Therefore if the facts say IT isn’t doing well then you have to own up to it. The good news is that during the first 30 to 90 days you can publish all the negative performance data you want and not take the blame. After that, you are the owner of all good and bad news. So use this “honeymoon” period to get all the facts on the table accompanied by well thought out plans and proposals to make improvements.

Question: Are Service Levels measured by satisfaction surveys?

Strategy: Satisfaction surveys measure perceptions and not facts. However, in the absence of facts they become the reality by which the CIO must live. Again, if surveys are an accepted tool then, get one done right away and use it as the initial benchmark that needs to be improved upon. Believe it or not, a low bar can be a good thing. So if the survey comes back with low marks there is nowhere to go but up.

Question: Are Service Levels measured by formal comparisons between baseline performance expectations against actual performance achieved?

Strategy: Here you need to become well versed in the history and trends of IT’s performance. Luckily you have the data readily available. The key now is to look for gaps between the data and the feedback your face-to-face sessions are yielding. Be sure to identify these gaps in your success roadmap along with plans on how to narrow and eliminate.

How often is the User Community surveyed as to their overall satisfaction levels?

Question: Is the user community never surveyed?

Strategy: Give serious consideration to adding a well thought-out survey to your service level arsenal. Ideally surveys should be conducted at least twice a year and after every project is implemented. This is especially true in larger organizations where the CIO can’t personally stay in touch, face-to-face, with their stakeholders and constituents. Surveys can be an excellent addition to any Voice of the Customer program.

Question: Is the user community surveyed only when management perceives a problem?

Strategy: This is a bad circumstance at best since it indicates that management is fine with witch hunts and that the past CIOs have not gotten the message that too much negative noise is bubbling up from the ranks. To fix this practice follow the guidance in #1 above.

Question: Is the user community surveyed at least annually?

Strategy: Annual surveys are good but not perfect. Surveys are best conducted when an event has ended (like a project, new application rollout, etc.) and there are specific feedback and performance related data that needs to be captured and quantified. Consider increasing frequency to the survey mix and again get a benchmark survey done right away.

Question: Is the user community surveyed at least annually and after every project?
Strategy: This is a good place to be. Review the survey content and make sure that the questions are quantified and identify expectation gaps.

SUMMING IT UP

Understanding the quality of IT service levels will help the new CIO shape their priorities over the first 18 months of tenure with the hiring company. Typically, new CIOs inherit a less than desirable environment and are tasked with turning a bad situation into a winning one. And aggressive service level improvement effort is almost always needed and done right should be self affirming with predefined improvement goals that are easy to quantify and measure.

CONCLUSION

This concludes the three part series on how the strategies and tactics adopted and deployed by newly hired CIOs during their first 30 days on the job can impact their long term success.

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