Reporting policy and rules

An ideal approach to building a business-focused service-reporting framework is to take the time to define and agree the policy and rules with the business and Service Design about how reporting will be implemented and managed.

This includes:

• Targeted audience(s) and the related business views on what the service delivered is
• Agreement on what to measure and what to report on
• Agreed definitions of all terms and boundaries
• Basis of all calculations
• Reporting schedules
• Access to reports and medium to be used
• Meetings scheduled to review and discuss reports.

Right content for the right audience

Numerous policies and rules can exist as long as it is clear for each report which policies and rules have been applied, e.g. one policy may be applied to manufacturing whereas a variant may be more suited to the sales team. However all policies and rules form part of the single reporting framework.

Once the framework, policies and rules are in place, targeting suitably styled reports becomes simply a task of translating flat historical data into meaningful business views (which can be automated). These need to be annotated around the key questions, threat s, mitigations and improvements such data provoke. Reports can then be presented via the medium of choice, e.g. paper-based hard copies, online soft copies, web-enabled dynamic HTML, current snapshot whiteboards, or real-time portal/ dashboard s.

Simple and effective customizable and automated reporting is crucial to a successful, ongoing reporting system that is seen as adding value to the business. Over time, many of the initial standard reports may become obsolete in favour of the regular production of custom reports which have been shaped to meet changing business needs and become the standard.

The end result is the targeted recipient having clear, unambiguous and relevant information in a language and style they understand and like, accessible in the medium of their choice, and detailing the delivery of IT into their environment within their boundaries, without such information being clouded by the data related to the delivery of IT into other areas of the business. Figure 4.9 depicts the service-reporting process.

Figure 4.9 Service reporting process

Дата добавления: 2015-10-02