Why Measure and Report Service Performance

Organisations should measure service performance because measurement supports control, decisions, accountability, learning and improvement. Reporting then turns selected evidence into a clear message for a defined audience, so measures are valuable only when they lead to decisions and action.

• Start with the decision or behaviour needed. Collecting data without purpose is the first pitfall; every measure should be linked to the management decision a change in it should trigger.
• Define measure ownership and rules. Each measure needs an owner, a named data source, an agreed calculation and a baseline, so its quality can be trusted and important variation is not hidden by the headline.
• Combine trends, context and commentary. Reports must preserve context and make consumer impact visible rather than merely display data; assuming a dashboard explains itself is a common mistake. In the article's example, a report adds demand context and business impact so a decline in response performance leads to a capacity decision rather than argument.
• Retire measures that no longer help. Reporting everything measured is another pitfall. Useful tests of the reporting system itself are decision usefulness, measure quality and the action that follows from reports, read as a set rather than in isolation.