Service Level Management

Matthew Lehman eMeritum Inc.

Overview

 What are we talking about?

 People, process, and technology  Laying the groundwork  The devil’s in the details  Measuring (and measuring, and …)  Keeping the ball rolling  Why are we doing this again?

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What are we talking about?

 Developing tools to help foster communication around what defines a service and how to measure the service  Matching the tools to the situation  Removing ambiguity  Helping both the consumer and the producer to be successful  Requires a rich linkage between services, financials, and technology.

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People, process, and technologies

 SLM is mostly concerned with communication; consequently it is mostly about people  Being able to execute the agreements and processes efficiently and repeatedly is key  Technology plays a pivotal role, but beware of getting sidetracked with too much technology 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 4

Laying the groundwork

 Sponsorship  Understand the business objectives  Set realistic expectations  Use your legal counsel early  Pick your battles wisely 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 5

Measuring (and measuring, and…)

 Baselines  Common repositories  Understand the ramifications of the measurement, method, and target 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 6

What to measure?

 Make sure the measurements meet the following criteria: – Attainable – Measurable – Meaningful – Controllable – Mutually acceptable 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 7

What not to measure?

 Anything that does not have a documented and well understood effect on the end user experience!

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The devil’s in the details

 The service level agreement (SLA)  Legal concerns  Conformance  Anatomy of an SLA  External SLA’s  Internal SLA’s 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 9

Service Level Agreements (SLA)

 It’s a part of a contract  Might be legally enforceable, might not.

 Needs to have teeth  Should be multi-lateral 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 10

Legal concerns

 Liquidated damages for delay  Right of termination  Due diligence  Requirement of flexibility  Understanding “material breach of contract”  Force majeure clauses 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 11

Conformance

 How are the parties notified the service is no longer in conformance to the service level and what remedies are to be taken  Method of notification  Method to restore  Method to provide recompense (the carrot and the stick) 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 12

Anatomy of an SLA

 Introduction  Definitions  Review process  Description of services  Roles and responsibilities  Service levels and targets  Escalation procedures  Reporting procedures 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 13

Internal service level management

 Get involved in business process development  Use tools to show increase in service levels rather than conformance 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 14

External service level management

 Develop solid SLA’s  Agree on measurement methods in the SLA  Service level tools must be in place before the service(s) are procured  Correlate data from the service provider  Conformance is very difficult – it gets exponentially worse with the number of vendors 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 15

Keeping the ball rolling

 Keep measuring  Live up to your promises 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 16

Why are we doing this again?

 Communication!

 Measure what we manage  Conflict prevention 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 17

Example SLA’s

 http://www.yale.edu/support/dsp/contract.html

 http://www.hk.super.net/service/sla.html

 http://www.lbl.gov/ICSD/CIS/SLA-UNIX.html

 http://www.supportresearch.com/Fry/tpl-SLA.htm

 http://www.technet.nm.org/services/technical services/svc_lvl_agmt.html

 http://www.mountain.net/cs/docs/sla/ 4/28/2020 Service Level Management - copyright eMeritum, Inc. 2000 18

SLA Resources

       http://www.nkarten.com/sla.html

http://www.cio.com/archive/111598_sla_content.html

http://www.nwfusion.com/buzz99/buzzsla2.html

http://www.internetwk.com/trends/040698-2.htm

http://www.outsourcing-sla.com/html/negotiate.html

http://www.summitonline.com/service/papers/rick1-serv.html

http://www.ins.com/knowledge/articles/sla_work.asp

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Thank You!