Certified Agile Service Manager Service Management Metrics and KPIs 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which type of metric focuses on the outcomes delivered to customers rather than the volume of work completed?
- Output metric
- Activity metric
- Outcome metric (Correct answer)
- Throughput metric
Correct answer: Outcome metric
Outcome metrics measure the value and results delivered to customers, not just how much work was done.
Question 2: In Agile Service Management, what does 'lead time' measure?
- Time spent actively working on a request
- Time from request submission to fulfillment (Correct answer)
- Time to resolve a major incident
- Time between sprint planning sessions
Correct answer: Time from request submission to fulfillment
Lead time measures the total elapsed time from when a customer submits a request to when it is fully delivered.
Question 3: Which metric best indicates whether a service team is consistently delivering within agreed timeframes?
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance rate (Correct answer)
- Number of incidents logged
- Sprint velocity
Correct answer: Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance rate
SLA compliance rate directly reflects how often the team meets its committed delivery timeframes with customers.
Question 4: What is 'cycle time' in an Agile service context?
- Duration of a full sprint cycle
- Time actively spent working on an item from start to completion (Correct answer)
- Time between recurring incidents
- Total backlog processing time
Correct answer: Time actively spent working on an item from start to completion
Cycle time measures only the active work duration on an item, excluding wait time before work begins.
Question 5: Which of the following is an example of a 'vanity metric' that Agile Service Managers should avoid over-relying on?
- Customer satisfaction score
- Number of tickets closed per day (Correct answer)
- First contact resolution rate
- Mean time between failures
Correct answer: Number of tickets closed per day
Tickets closed per day is a vanity metric because it reflects activity volume without indicating quality or customer value.
Question 6: In Agile SM, 'throughput' is best defined as:
- The percentage of requests completed on time
- The number of work items completed per unit of time (Correct answer)
- The average cost per service request
- The ratio of incidents to problems
Correct answer: The number of work items completed per unit of time
Throughput measures how many work items a team completes within a given time period, indicating overall delivery capacity.
Certified Agile Service Manager Service Management Metrics and KPIs 1
Which type of metric focuses on the outcomes delivered to customers rather than the volume of work completed?