CIOs usually have a lot on their plate, especially given the ever-growing importance of technology to business operations and outcomes. So why should they care about the oddly named “watermelon effect”? Especially because their C-level peers don’t mention it in formal and informal discussions.
Instead, they’re relaying stories of how IT service delivery and support issues have adversely affected their teams’ ability to deliver their work commitments despite IT’s performance metrics showing that service level agreement (SLA) targets have been met. But this is the “watermelon effect”!
This blog explores the watermelon effect and why CIOs should care about it.
What the watermelon effect is
In IT service management (ITSM), the terms “watermelon effect” and “watermelon SLAs” refer to situations in which service performance metrics, such as those related to SLAs, indicate that “all is well” when, in reality, there are significant issues with IT’s service delivery and support capabilities (from the end-user perspective).
The term “watermelon” is used because the IT performance metrics are green, like a watermelon, “on the outside.” The CIO’s service performance reports and dashboards show that IT services consistently meet agreed-upon targets. However, again like a watermelon, IT’s performance is “red on the inside” because, despite the positive metrics, the end-user experience is potentially poor, with unresolved issues, service disruptions, and dissatisfaction that goes unnoticed and unreported by the traditional IT performance metrics.
For example, an SLA-focused metric might show that a service is available 99% of the time, thus meeting the agreed-upon level of performance. However, if the 1% of downtime occurs during critical work periods, the operational and end-user impact is significant despite the green SLA. Another good example is incident ticket handling. Many IT service desks employ industry benchmark performance metrics such as average handling time and ticket closure rates. Again, the performance metrics might be green from an IT perspective (it’s what the corporate ITSM tool tells them). However, the end-user perspective might be red, with their tickets being closed despite still suffering from the underlying issue.
What this means
The watermelon effect is the disconnect between what the IT organization thinks is happening (thanks to traditional performance metrics) and what end-users actually experience.
The green metrics mask the real issues experienced by end-users, and it’s likely that the underlying issues aren’t identified and resolved. This not only affects end-users’ opinions of the IT organization (and their inclination to use services such as the IT service desk), but it also hinders continual improvement efforts.
There’s much for CIOs to unpack regarding how the watermelon effect could affect their IT organization and its performance. The following eight reasons are a good place to start.
8 reasons why CIOs need to care about the watermelon effect
The disconnect between what traditional IT metrics report and what end-users experience, i.e. the watermelon effect, creates many issues for CIOs and their teams. These issues need to be addressed to close the gap between the green of performance reporting and the potential red seen by end-users.
These issues (and the associated opportunities) are all reasons why CIOs need to care about the watermelon effect:
- Inaccurate reporting to business stakeholders. The reports showing that IT services are performing well are misleading. This can result in poor decision-making and the failure to allocate IT resources to the right areas within the IT organization.
- Ineffective service performance indicators. Sadly, if people don’t believe what’s being reported based on their experiences, the employed service performance indicators become ineffective outside the IT organization. Issues will likely remain and perhaps worsen, with the IT organization potentially becoming less aligned with business needs.
- Lost trust. When end-users experience issues despite the formal performance metrics “showing green,” their trust in IT services and the IT organization is adversely affected.
- Issue escalation. Some minor IT issues can quickly escalate if not addressed promptly, with the watermelon effect likely delaying their identification. In the worst cases, this delay could result in business-affecting major incidents.
- Missed improvement opportunities. Without the end-user perspective, IT organizations might focus on the wrong things for improvement. This includes unnoticed operational inefficiencies or improvement investments that advance the IT organization at the expense of business operations and outcomes. Ultimately, the IT organization spends time and money improving in areas that don’t create business value.
- End-users lose time and productivity. The quality of IT services and the associated experiences impact employee happiness and productivity. While increased employee happiness should improve their productivity, any IT service delivery and support issues reduce it. These issues can go undetected with traditional IT metrics and the watermelon effect.
- The adverse impact on business outcomes. The poor service quality and experiences that lead to employee lost productivity ultimately affect business operations and outcomes, adversely impacting the corporate bottom line.
- Companies can lose good employees because of poor IT experiences. Poor experiences not only affect employee productivity. They also adversely impact employee retention, with employees increasingly not tolerating poor workplace experiences.
Hopefully, these example issues sufficiently demonstrate why CIOs need to care about the watermelon effect. Ultimately, CIOs can’t continue to trust the one-sided view of traditional IT metrics.
You can learn more about what other organizations are doing to address this imbalance, using experience management and measurements that provide the end-user perspective of IT performance, by looking at our customer case studies.
