Indicators of Good Practice
An institution may decide to adopt a formal framework (such as ITIL) to manage its information systems and IT service delivery. Each formal framework specifies a number of outputs and performance indicators. Even if an institution does not adopt one of these frameworks a number of documents would provide assurance of good management of on-going services:
- Periodic analysis of the requirements of users (both in general terms and in relation to specific services).
- Service Definition Statements indicating when services are available, when they are supported, etc. Institutions may decide to govern some of their services through more formal Service Level Agreements.
- The appropriate committee (e.g. Information Strategy Steering Committee) should receive periodic comparisons between stated service levels and actual service delivery, including reports on significant unplanned disruptions.
- Periodic user satisfaction surveys should also be conducted, with the results reported back to the relevant committee.