"Continual Service Improvement" is one of the five ITIL v3 books. It, along with all the ITIL books, refers to the "Deming Cycle," four phases of both process improvement and process implementation: Plan, Do, Check, Act.
Continual Service Improvement is also very metrics-focused. When learning about Continual Service Improvement it can be helpful to have an understanding of reporting/data analysis concepts, such as how "dashboards" can be helpful.
ITIL's continual service improvement model has six steps:
In this model, an IT organization knows what it wants, then conducts a baseline assessment, sets desired metrics targets (e.g. Critical Success Factors, or CSFs), begins the process improvement proper, and afterwards reviews its metrics to determine whether the improvement was successful.
Each step is important. For example, the baseline assessment ("where are we now?") may not seem necessary, and many IT departments perform improvements without an assessment. However, six months later no one can prove how much better things got, because there was no measurement taken "pre-improvement."
Continual Service Improvement relies on appropriate metrics to support of an overall vision. On page 48 of ITIL v3 Continual Service Improvement, ITIL recommends a continuum, including "Vision," "Objectives," "Metrics," and "Measurements." It's hard to create useful metrics because, as in quantum theory, observing a system changes how it works. For example, if an organization measures how long calls to the Service Desk take, it may encourage Service Desk employees to hang up the phone before the user is satisfied.
Metrics can balance one another; for example, the length of a phone call may be a better measurement when combined with a satisfaction survey. An organization may also have different goals at different times for its metrics; with an Incident Management implementation, a department may want to increase the percentage of tickets resolved by the Service Desk, but then after a Problem Management implementation they may want the opposite.
Universities often have less of a "measurement culture." Introducing metrics can make staff uncomfortable when they are not sure how the metrics might be used.
ITIL recommends setting Critical Success Factors (CSFs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), metrics, and measurements for processes and services. Metrics are used throughout ITIL's Service Lifecycle but they have particular importance to Continual Service Improvement.
Continual Service Improvement recommends a connection from an organization's vision into metrics through the following continuum:
Metrics can be used for four reasons:
Metrics can help show others what a great job you did, after an improvement is complete. Metrics also help set a common goal. Metrics, in fact, can be motivating!
Universities may be less likely to have strong metrics because they do not need to justify themselves to stockholders and they do not try to maximize revenue the same way as a public company. Also, it can be difficult to translate an academic vision such as "classroom excellence" into measurable goals.