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How to think an SLA
Outsourcing is a fairly standardized domain at the process level. The central process is the services management which is reflected in the client service contract as a SLA (Service Level Agreement).
But SLA is not a contract like any other. Neither can be generated if the other processes necessary for the services are not in place. We are dealing with a well-known methodology, ITIL, which became in the meantime also an ISO - ISO 20.000. The ITIL standard describes a set of processes crucial to both the beneficiary of the outsourcing services level and the client level.
SLA is a service contract between two parties who speak the same language, using a similar set of knowledge and related processes. Each process in an organization must find reply in the other organization. It may be major differences, but during the implementation phase of the contract, the solutions to cover the gaps need to be found and alternative solutions are nedeed. The neglect of one aspect may create further problems that will awake in a gray area, uncovered from the beginning.
SLA's will initially specify what services are desired, as type / description, which is the time for resolving the service and how to complete and close the application. Speaking of a practical application we speak of a related process, one of the most important ITIL processes, the management of incidents.
It is not enough only one SLA to provide how long is resolved an incident if it is not specified which is the incident, how it is communicated between the parties, which is currently launching metering period of responsibility of the supplier. An incident can be complex, the contract must provide the treatment phases of an incident. It is not enough mention in SLA that the incident can be solved in 4 hours, if it needs spare parts and spare parts are supplied by the client. Practical the part supplier will expect the spare part under the contract until he will receive one, perhaps in more than 3 days, and then he will complete the intervention, under the contract.
So the 4 hours turned into 3 days and 4 hours. A poorly made SLA involves high costs at the client level. If the provider is required to solve in 4 hours, he will propose a cost of intervention for a short period of time, so a higher cost. If you would have asked 3 days, the cost required would be much lower. Sometimes they require close SLAs then found out not to be necessary or that they are not applicable in the customer’s perspective. This requirement, originally justified as a requirement for high quality, and that a supplier can meet, it becomes a requirement at a cost too high given that can not be executed because of internal processes of the client or of external factors unproperly aligned.
A service contract should provide in addition to those services the way they are running. Otherwise thousands of interpretations and particular situations will occur that will lead to unproductive discussions. A plan of escalation and reconciliation is still very important and should be part of the SLA.
SLA refers to services running on a client infrastructure component. That component must be well identified and usually must be included in a configurations database (CMDB-Configurations Management Database). Infrastructure component - CI (Configuration Item) (eg a PC) must be clearly identified and both sides of the contract to be able to identify it correctly. That CI is connected to other CI's (eg software on the PC). In order to resolve incidentally you should have access to all information and make a correct finding. If the client requires to repair the PC hardware, but the problem is from the software, basically a new requirement must be registered. So the second important ITIL process is the configurations management.
We talked in this article about two important processes related to the process of Service Level Management (SLM) which are reflected in an SLA. But they are not the only.
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