The following Blog post was originally published on the NTEN.org site.
March 5, 2012
One
of our senior managers asked me soon after I started at IFRC, “Why is ISD the
largest department with the largest budget in our division; what are you
doing?” This is not an unusual
question; however, it was wake-up call that the value that IT was adding (and
could be adding) to the organization was invisible.
I
was first introduced to IT Annual Reports by the CIO Executive
Council, where a number of members posted their reports as
examples. None of them grabbed me. They were too technical, too tactical or too
focused on internal customers. Last
year I discovered the annual Intel IT Performance
Report. It was clear,
easy to read and answered the fundamental questions of what value are we
adding, what are the issues we see for the organization, and where are we
going? We set out with this as a model.
As
we were setting strategic goals and objectives, we also asked ourselves: how
do we know if the Information Services Department (ISD) team has moved the
needle at the end of the year? What does success look like and who cares? This is not a frivolous question.
Since
the ISD team is about serving our customers (I take issue with those who say
we don't[1]), we need
to be clear about the audiences we serve.
We see five:
- Beneficiaries (everything we do must be measured ultimately by its impact in improving the lives of the most vulnerable).
- Field-workers in our National Societies who work directly with beneficiaries, delivering our programs
- Regional offices who work directly with local National Societies
- Headquarters staff who provide support for all of the above
- Our senior management team and governing boards who oversee our work
When
Tom Murphy, former Chairman and CEO of Capital Cities / ABC, Inc., was
Chairman of Save the Children's Board, I asked him what was most important to
him in taking the pulse of how an international child-focused organisation was
doing. He noted four questions, which
became our (more positive) Murphy's Laws:
- Are we reaching more children?
- Are donations growing?
- Is the press good?
- Are employees happy?
1. Are more beneficiaries being reached?
We
track technology used by beneficiaries (the top of the pyramid[2]), our
beneficiary budget spending versus lights-on spending, and number of National
Societies completing our Digital Divide capacity building program.
2. Is our technology investment growing?
We
benchmark IT spending against revenue and operating expense.[3]
3. Are the customers happy?
We
survey users annually on all aspects of our IT services and publish our
customer satisfaction index for headquarters and the Field.[4] We also track the number of thank-you notes
we receive each month from our employees.
4. Are my problems getting solved?
We
look at the percent of service calls solved on the first call and related data
from our satisfaction survey.
5. Are my projects getting done?
We
track timeliness and cost of our larger "flagship" projects against
original forecast. We also track the
project team's "confidence" index for completing projects on target.[5]
6. Are new technologies being delivered?
We
monitor adoption rates of new products like mobile phones, and those selected
by users. We also report out on new capabilities we deliver like HD video
conferencing, on-line meetings, larger email-boxes and other “goodies”.
We
also survey users on use of emerging tech tools or applications.
7. Are National Societies getting stronger? (Is
the Field getting stronger?)
Our
Digital Divide program and number of countries assisted is our key metric. We
track MOU΄s signed, projects completed, and the ratio of budget spending for
beneficiaries to IT costs.
8. IS IT getting greener?
We
count servers retired and on-line meetings held instead of travel for
in-person meetings. We also calculate
savings in our carbon footprint.[6]
9. Is IT using financial resources efficiently?
We
report budget versus actual and a handful of ratios that we benchmark against
other international organisations annually.
10. Are our systems reliable?
We
track "good days" and "bad days" and chart these monthly[7]
Answering
these ten questions tells our audience how we are performing for them. If I
had to pick two, growing our reach to those in need, and happy internal
customers would be at the top of my list.
What value do we add to the organization? As the title of our inaugural Annual IT
Report states, we deliver mission relevant IT.
Ask our customers in the Field and HQ if we deliver on this promise.
We did.
[1]
See Wikipedia the discussion and references on internal customers, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer
; for an interesting comparison, see http://ezinearticles.com/?Myth-of-An-Internal-Customer&id=2578986
[4] A US colleague tracks one metric: "How
likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or
colleague?" See the Net Promoter
article in Wikipedia, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter
[5] The Project
Confidence Index is a periodic average of the front-line project team’s individual
and subjective assessment on a 1-10 scale how likely the project will deliver
on its objectives (on time, on budget, and within scope.)
[6] We use the carbon
footprint calculator from Terrapass (www.terrapass.com).
See their paper on Carbon
Offsetting & Air Travel for a good review of the carbon savings
data. The
Nature Conservancy also has a calculator worth
comparing.
[7] See Hallmark case:
James R. Johnson, “Magnifying the Problem “, CIO, November 15, 1992, pp. 34-38.
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