You've heard the term—"analytics". But what exactly is "analytics"? To some, analytics is a theoretical science. It is complex and difficult to provide. To others, analytics is a way of life—a discipline to impose order and foster improvement. But what is "analytics"? And how do we implement it?
Let's start with a definition:
"Analytics—the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns of data. Especially valuable in areas rich with recorded information, analytics relies on the simultaneous application of statistics, computer programming, and operations research to quantify performance. Analytics often favors data visualization to communicate insight." (From Wikipedia)
That definition alone gives us guidance. Analytics is used to measure and quantify performance. This is done through visualizing data and communicating what is learned about the current state of performance.
Analytics can be applied to just about anything—organizations, people, or processes—to help improve performance. In the IT industry, analytics is most frequently applied to business services that people operate to ensure the end-user is getting the best possible experience.
This is where Performance Analytics plays a critical role in your organization. Performance Analytics gives you the insight you need to drive the optimal end-user experience. Once you understand what is happening, you can take action to meet (and even exceed!) your business goals.
So how do you get started with Performance Analytics today? It's easy . . .
1. Start With Process Structure
It used to be the norm that people would request services over e-mail or phone. Someone would want to get something done, so a message would be sent. While this might work to fulfill a request, it's not very scalable or repeatable. As the number of requests increase, you'll have increasing difficulty in tracking who has done what. It might even be difficult to even track the total number of requests because there is no consistent way to make the request.
This is why process structure is important. If everyone makes the request the same way and there is a specific workflow behind the process, the completion of the requests becomes consistent and (more importantly) measureable.
The ServiceNow platform allows you to easily implement this type of structured process. The associated process activities and workflow are stored in a central database. And this database is the single source of truth for the process. This is a very convenient way to gain control and start the process of analytics!
2. Create Process Visibility
Once you have a structured approach to your process, you can start to understand how users experience the process. Let's look at the following Incident and Problem Management processes as an example.
The process owner that designed the structure knows how the process should work. In the best-case scenario, a user would experience the process in the following way:
Perfect! We have a good process flow that supports a happy customer. Unfortunately, not all users are going to experience this process in the intended way. Take a look at a different flow through the same process:
The customer is still happy at the end of the process, but the process has taken longer than originally intended and involved different resources in the organization. It is important to know how many people experience the process in this way because it is not the "ideal" experience.
There are still other ways that end-users can traverse the workflow:
Wow! This a terrible customer experience. The process owner (and the executives) must understand how frequently this path is traveled. Too many people receiving a poor experience will have major consequences.
So a structured process by itself is not enough. You need more information to know how the process is being used. You can get this from the ServiceNow platform as well. The built-in reporting engine can tell you how many incidents are open, what state they are in, and how many people did not experience the best-case process.
And this is where most organizations stop. They understand the process and how it is being used. And they remain reactive to the process they have put in place. They fight fires when there are too many escalations. They report the metrics to management about how many incidents were closed. They "operate" the process.
But this is where organizations need to take the next step, and this is why Performance Analytics is important.
3. Get Proactive
To become proactive, a process owner or an executive needs insight. Insight is not just understanding the current state. Insight is understanding the current state in the context of a historical picture. For example, consider the following:
- You might know the number of open incidents from today, but how does that compare to yesterday? How does that compare to last week? Last month? Is the trend increasing or decreasing?
- You might know that most of your incidents enter an "Awaiting User Info" state to get more information, but how long do they stay in that state? Is that average duration shorter or longer than it was yesterday?
- You might know that 70% of your users went through the best-case process experience, which met expectations. But what was the percentage last week? Can you identify a trend that might take you below your expectations?
This is where Performance Analytics helps. By tracking and storing these important performance metrics on a daily basis, Performance Analytics quantifies process performance and tracks it over time. You can determine when performance is moving in the wrong direction and take the necessary steps to correct it.
Performance Analytics also gives you the statistical and visual tools out of the box to quickly identify patterns. These tools mean that process insight is just a few clicks away in your secure, scalable ServiceNow platform. With Performance Analytics, you have all that you need to take the next steps. Analytics achieved!
Continue Your Journey at Knowledge15
It doesn't matter whether or not you have experience with Performance Analytics. Knowledge15 is the perfect time to start or continue your journey to process improvement. To help you, we have a number of sessions available at Knowledge15:
- Pre-Conference Training: Be part of the first delivery of the new Reporting and Performance Analytics training available from our Education Services organization!
- Customer Sessions: Learn how other customers are using the built-in reporting engine and Performance Analytics to improve their processes.
- Technical Labs: Get hands-on experience with reporting and Performance Analytics. The conference will offer introductory to advanced sessions on our technology.
- CreatorCon: Go deeper with reporting and Performance Analytics as you integrate analytics into your custom applications. Performance Analytics is not limited to our out of the box apps!
My next blog post will summarize all of the sessions related to reporting and Performance Analytics. If you are attending Knowledge15, be sure to check them out.
If you are not attending Knowledge15, don't worry! Keep an eye on this blog. We will be posting information every day to keep you up to date on what's going on.
