Measuring Information Technology's Success

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Measures that are tied to business drivers

Metrics are detailed measures that feed KPIs
Performance metrics fall into the nebulous ares of business intelligence that is neither technology, nor business centered, but requires input from both IT and business professionals.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

Efficiency IT Metric

Measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughout, speed and availability.

Effectiveness IT Metric

Measures the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates and sell through increases.

Benchmarking - Baseline Metrics

Regardless of what is measured, how it is measured and whether it is for the sake of efficiency or effectiveness, there must be benchmarks - baseline values the system seeks to attain.

Benchmarking

A process of continuously measuring system results, comparing those results to optimal system performance (benchmark values) and identifying steps and procedures to improve system performance.

Comparing efficiency IT and effectiveness IT metrics for egovernment initiatives

The Interrelationships Of Efficiency and Effectiveness IT Metrics

Common types of efficiency IT metrics

Effectiveness IT metrics focus on an organization's goals, strategies and objectives include:

Security is an issue for any organization offering products or services over the internet.

It is inefficient for an organization to implement internet security, since it slows down processing;

However, to be effective it must implement internet security
Secure Internet connections must offer encryption and Secure Sockets Layers (SSL denoted by the lock symbol in the lower right corner of a browser)

Metrics For Strategic Initiatives

Metrics for measuring and managing strategic initiatives include: