Measuring performance

To know is to anticipate, to adapt is to improve: such is our objective concerning performance measurement, whether it concern your IT applications or your employees’ knowledge and skills.

For example:

• IT performance
  • Monitoring: evaluating the availability of Service Level Agreement and Operation Level Agreement services to guarantee maximum accessibility to information systems.
  • Capacity planning: maximising resource management and measuring usage peaks indicating risk control.

• Users’ use of applications:
  • The number of users connected to a new application or an application whose interface has changed
  • Topics exchanged with their frequency and criticality to improve understanding and evaluation of everyday business issues and activity

• Employees’ performance
  • The best contributors to particular themes around a company social network or as the result of a user test after installing a new platform or upgrading software.
  • Employees being the subject of closer follow-up based on tests carried out in an IT environment simulating the production environment but without real production data.
    When it comes to tools, we have no preconceived beliefs. We are experts in SAP, Oracle and third-party open-source publishers such as Claroline and Moodle.Our priority is to offer the most consistent and effective solution based on your IT landscape, always keeping in mind the following three commitments
    1. to reproduce reliable data concerning user experience and the use of your application software
    2. to decipher known trends concerning uses and points of interest
    3. and to identify profiles which must be the object of particular attention, notably those susceptible of becoming your advocates for change.

Change management

Three types of service may be associated to help understand and ultimately accept change:

Analyse

• The new way of working. This is organisational change.

Delivrables: organisation procedure, organisation chart, business process mapping, heuristic diagram, decision aid table, and the RACI model of roles and responsibilities

• The new software interface. Based on previously requested business requirements, business representatives test the new IT application. Such functional tests can be co-ordinated remotely or online, manually or partially carried out using software. Such tests quickly spot faults as well as ensuring that professional obligations and demands are met.

Delivrables: specifications, validation procedure, ergonomic and functional tests, change request

Share

From the initial presentation session through tailor-made on-request training, incorporating teacher training and education workshops, a wide range of services is provided in order to co-ordinate and lead the ensuing teams. The aim is to give perspective to the change for each audience and integrate it into everyday performance. Moreover, self-training can also be integrated into each user profile. Progress through the platforms and training software (LMS, LCMS and single sourcing) indicates that the content is appropriate, aimed at professional objectives and adapted to the different levels as they are reached. Customisation of each training programme is thus based on skill development and progress and then (in Part 3) assessed for each profile or even each individual.

Delivrables: e-learning module incorporating video, user manual, technical guide and online single-source help, knowledge database, wiki and serious games.

Achieve

Return on investment remains essential, including that involved in the experience of users faced with change in organisation and IT. This means closely managing KPIs to oversee users’ control of new software and/or operators following the rules imposed by the new organisation. Such indicators must often be co-ordinated with the project KPIs. Moreover, consulting a dashboard measuring use and content shared, it is easier to distinguish and then encourage good behaviour by involving the better participants in order to promote the sharing of experiences as well as good practices. The aim is to instil within all contributors that sense of dynamism shown by the better participants and thus achieve the final goal.

Delivrables: satisfaction questionnaire, level of attainment questionnaire, the least and most popular subjects, number of calls or incidents, identification of the best participants on a given subject, feedback and good practices.

Documentation

Delivrables are linked to the life cycle of the product or the service provided as well as to the company project. They are of three kinds:

• product/service deliverables, including plans, templates, diagrams, prototypes etc.;
• project deliverables of which the three key deliverables are the project charter or statement, the project management plan and the project closing;
• management deliverables, among which are Monitoring and Controlling reports to measure project progress

These deliverables are upgraded and updated with the changes and development that occur throughout the project’s life cycle. They are archived at the close of the project and constitute a basis for your company’s future projects.

Sword Technologies makes a point of ensuring the highest quality of the deliverables we supply to our clients. The quality of these deliverables determines the correct implementation of IT processes within the company and must ensure positive development in the short, medium and long term.

Training

In a wish to be thorough with our offer, Sword Technologies is at the client’s entire disposal when it comes to training in new technology.

Any new IT solution requires a period of adaptation and learning. Our main preoccupation is that users be supported and trained to guarantee a full grasp of the new IT tools and thus maximise their exploitation.

With Sword Technologies, the company has a number of partners at its disposal when it comes to training in specific software such as industrial software or video, photo and audio management software aimed at highlighting some corporate asset.

We offer five types of service:

1. Content: design, publication and follow-up of training material, manuals, exercises, questionnaires and demonstrations. All this material can be produced from a single source: see the documentation section
2. Logistic management: room, IT material, tracking of invitations
3. In-class training: from the presentation session through to tailor-made training incorporating teacher training and education workshops
4. Online training: with such a wide choice of e-learning software available through LMS (Learning Management Systems), we tailor the best available technology to your requirements. In the course of our projects, partnerships have been formed with Claroline or Moodle for open source or with publishers such as SAP and Oracle for owner LMSs.
5. Performance management: questionnaires to measure level of attainment, skills and participant satisfaction. Such KPIs can be correlated with the project indicators. More details can be found in our “Performance” section.

IT equipment management

The control of outsourced IT equipment is of prime importance. Transparency is the key word which allows Sword Technologies’s clients to confidently delegate their whole IT equipment management to us. We use the best publishers, notably Microsoft, in order to ensure the highest possible technical expertise and cost-effectiveness when it comes to IT equipment management.