Before accepting another positive service report, executive leaders should ask two questions:
- How long was the employee unable to work?
- Who owned the experience from the first report through resolution?
Service desk, infrastructure, endpoint, and application teams can each meet their targets while an employee spends days waiting for help.
Individual teams can meet their performance targets while users still experience poor service. Handoffs can create delays, lost context, and gaps in ownership invisible to metrics measuring each team separately.
The Service Measurement Gap
Organizations often measure the work within each team more carefully than the disruption experienced by users.
- Response targets replace resolution outcomes.
- Tickets move without clear ownership.
- Users repeat information after transfers.
- Status updates describe activity without explaining progress.
- Internal measures overlook time lost between teams.
A closed ticket and a restored employee are not necessarily the same outcome.
A Better Management Standard
Leaders should require service measures following the complete experience.
Track elapsed disruption, transfer frequency, communication quality, and final resolution. Assign ownership across organizational boundaries rather than allowing responsibility to move with the ticket.
Assess urgency through business impact and user needs, not queue position alone.
What Leading Organizations Do
A stronger service model includes several practices:
- Review incidents involving repeated transfers.
- Preserve context during handoffs.
- Give users clear ownership and update expectations.
- Provide effective escalation to skilled support.
- Use automation to reduce effort rather than create barriers.
- Identify recurring problems before users report them.
A better service experience combines preventing problems, keeping users informed, and providing a clear path to skilled human support when escalation is needed.
AOTMP Perspective
AOTMP encourages technology leaders to measure service performance by how well employees can do their jobs, not simply whether support teams meet internal targets. Response times and ticket counts matter, but they do not tell the whole story.
Lead with Greater Confidence
Strong technology leadership benefits from perspectives beyond your own organization. Connect with AOTMP leaders and peers to challenge assumptions, exchange practical insights, and strengthen your organization’s management of technology cost, risk, and business value.
