[Quoted from http://g2sf.com/white-paper/]
The starting point for meaningful metrics is to determine how the end user or customer will evaluate the service provider’s performance on each of these services. Armed with this information it is then much easier to establish a limited number of high level, yet measurable metrics that be quantified and reported. It is then the responsibility of the IT organization to “reverse engineer” the overall customer focused metrics to determine the cascading sub tier metrics that directly contribute to the overall customer metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific IT service. These sub tier metrics represent both technology metrics that indicate the effectiveness of a specific technology as well as more service related metrics that represent the effectiveness of the combined technologies required to deliver a specific service. When combining the customer’s evaluation (perception) of the quality of service across all IT services, the effectiveness of the IT organization overall can be determined and improvement plans established. This approach to implementing metrics ensures that the appropriate organizational behaviors are aligned with what is important to the end user or customer.