Measuring the performance of service orientated IT management

The growth of the service economy has resulted in service-oriented thinking. IT departments have increasingly adopted IT service management (ITSM) frameworks, particularly the IT infrastructure library (ITIL). Despite the appeal and the potential to realise benefits, the practice of ITSM is hindered by difficulty in measuring performance. Using a systematic literature review, survey and qualitative analysis, we analyse the performance measurement of the three most implemented ITIL processes: change, incident and problem management. This paper offers an empirical analysis and proposes an approach to organising ITSM performance metrics. The findings of a survey of 203 IT service managers conducted in 2009 are presented. The findings show that despite the proliferation of performance metrics, organisations implementing ITSM frameworks report challenges due to lack of expertise, limited resources and poor engagement within business.