IT departments are being urged to improve the service they provide customers and staff by setting up 'offices of continuous improvement'.

This latest management trend is aimed at improving efficiency and attitudes within IT teams by setting metrics, establishing programmes for improving user experiences and changing IT processes.

"It's driven by the need to achieve operational excellence," says Tom Scholtz, an analyst with Meta Group.

"Most operational organisations are trying to be more effective and proactive. If you couple that with ebusiness, where being open for business and the availability of technology are one and the same thing, then the importance of quality of service becomes a critical differentiator."

Fewer than five per cent of global IT departments have such an office, according to Meta. This is expected to increase to 25 per cent by the end of 2002, and to 45 per cent by the end of 2004.

The UK is trailing behind, however. Scholtz says the current figure is below three per cent in the UK, and that we could be up to 12 months behind on the 2002 and 2004 predictions.

He suggests that in addition to setting up service level agreements (SLA), IT units should use other measurements to assess performance - for example, monitoring the percentage of changes made successfully in a given period.

"This is an evolution of the SLA culture," he says.

The office of continuous improvement should be given a charter of three or four years, allowing it to change the culture of an IT department.

Scholtz adds that, in a medium-sized IT company, the office would consist of one or two fairly senior staff, and must be an outward-facing rather than an inward-looking department.