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Service Level Agreement Management

Description/Summary

Service Level Agreement Management is responsible for establishing, reviewing and cancellation of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with customer.

Service Level Agreements

  • are based on Service Design
  • are negotiated and agreed with the customer
  • need the Supply Management Process for the supply of services (agreed in supplier contracts)on service levels (SLAs) from external partners (if needed)
  • need the Supply Management Process for the supply of services (agreed in UCs) on service levels (OLAs) from internal partners (if needed)

Objectives

The purpose of Service Level Agreement Management is to manage Service Level Agreements in a way that customer requirements are reflected and contracts are coordinated and harmonized. Basic requirement is to balance the value and quality for the customer with the costs of service.

Service Agreement Management contributes to an integrated Service Management approach by achieving the following goals:

  • Every service provided to a customer is covered by an SLA containing a description of the guaranteed and agreed service level.
  • To achieve the service level targets, OLAs and UCs are established in support of the SLAs by the Supply Management Process.

Roles

Service Level Agreement Management Specific Roles

Static Process Roles

The following roles are deployed within the Service Agreement Management process:

  • Process Owner: Initiator of the process, responsible for defining its strategic goals and allocating all require resources
  • Process Manager:(Service Level Agreement Process Manager) Manager of the entire process, responsible for its effectiveness and efficiency
  • Process Staff: (Service Level Agreement Process Staff) Manager of the entire process, responsible for its effectiveness and efficiency

Dynamic Process Roles

Service Specific Roles

Customer Specific Roles

Information artifacts

Customer Requirement

Formal standardized document to collect all relevant information on customer requirement for a commercial and technical feasibility study:

  • Unique identifier requirement/ customer
  • Status
  • Identifier of the service owner
  • Service concerned (minimum one service should be mentioned) if possible
  • Detailed requirement description (technical aspects, commercial aspects, other)
  • Other relevant information

The Service Agreement Record

The service record is the record holding any management-relevant information of a specific service agreement.

The following attributes must be considered for a service record:

  • Unique identifier
  • Status
  • Identifier of the service owner
  • Contract partners
  • Terms and conditions
  • Service concerned (minimum one service should be mentioned)
  • Detailed service description
  • Detailed description of prerequisites to be provided by customer
  • Links to related Service Level Agreements
  • Responsible Service Level Agreement Staff
  • Signatures
  • Dates of Signing
  • Rules of cancellation or prolongation
  • Rules and processes for changes in agreement
  • Other rules
  • Specific rules to be integrated in an agreement resulting from regional legislation

Service Catalog

Service catalog provides the range of services provided. Each service within the catalog typically includes:

  • Service description
  • Existing SLAs for the services
  • Service owner, sponsor, staff
  • Costs/ Prices
  • Other operating procedures

Service Agreement Record attributes mapped to activities

For icon descriptions see Record attributes X activities or refer to the „mouse-over“ explanations.

Additional Information Items

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
See Service Level Management

Key Concepts

Status of Service Agreements

Service Agreements may have different status, depending on the life cycle of the agreement:

  • planned: agreement planned, no agreement defined
  • under negotiation: draft version of agreement written, agreement in progress but not valid
  • under review: draft version of agreement written, agreement in progress but not valid
  • signed: end version of agreement signed, agreement valid regarding te agreed time periods of validation
  • canceled: agreement cancelled, not valid
  • not active: agreement out of validation time period, agreement not valid

Process

High Level Process Flow Chart

This chart illustrates the Service Agreement Management process and its activities as well as the status model reflected by the service record evolution.

Critical Success Factors

  • Well defined process and roles
  • Clearly defined responsibilities for design and signing of agreements on both sides
  • Will to agree
  • All agreement details should be part of the written agreement

Performance Indicators (KPI)

Process Trigger

Event Trigger

Process is triggered by new agreements or agreements required to be changed. Process is triggered by customer request or request from CRM Process.

Time Trigger

Process Specific Rules

Process Activities

Requirements Engineering

Service Level Agreement Staff forms together with the CRM Staff a team and decide on who is the requirements engineering agent. This agent gets in contact with the customer and defines customer requirements. This person needs to be an expert concerning the service offered by the company, to match customer requirements with existing services or to define if required services are possible to be delivered in commercial and technical view. A close cooperation with the Service Design Process, CRM and all Operation Processes is necessary.

The final regiments need to be written and agreed with the customer. An requirement document is provided.

Activity Specific Rules:

  • define requirement with customer
  • check requirement with internal processes if
    • technical deliverable
    • commercial feasible
  • support a business case definition together with CRM process
  • set status on „engineered“

SLA Negotiation

Requirements are prices and then discussed with the customer. Different options of service delivery are discussed. In addition for each service a service level is defined, proceed and discussed. This pricing of diverse service levels is supported by the Service Level Management Process.

A final agreement version is distributed and discussed between all involved parties.

Activity Specific Rules:

  • trigger Service Level Management Process for price information on diverse Service level of Service to customer
  • combine all information to offer/ agreement
  • discuss with customer
  • if final version agreed – provide final contract version to all parties for signing
  • set status on „negotiated“

SLA Agreement

Final version of the contract is checked by all parties including now the check layer. Final version is distributed, signed and documented in the contract/ agreement data base (see CRM Process).

Activity Specific Rules:

  • Provide final check of agreement including check by law
  • Sign contract
  • Document contract by providing is to the CRM Process
  • Set status on „agreed“

SLA Monitoring

Existing agreements need to be monitored:

  • All aspects NOT involving the service quality are monitored by the CRM process
  • All service quality concerning aspects are monitored by Service Level Management Process

Activity Specific Rules:

  • monitor quality of service -> trigger Service Level Management Process for monitoring, recive and anlyse information
  • monitor all other contract aspects -> trigger CRM Process, recive and analyse information
  • monitor agreement for end of service (based on date, conditions or customer request)
  • if end of service
    • set status on „end of service“
    • continue with next activity

SLA Expiration

Contract cancellation is done in the CRM Process due to complete legal situation in case of contract cancellation. Service Level Agreement Management is triggered by CRM process and the monitoring of a agreement is stopped.

Activity Specific Rules:

  • stop monitoring of agreement on trigger from CRM process
  • set agreement on „expired“
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