Anticlue

Controlling and Monitoring the Service Level Management Process

Like everything else in life, if you want to assure service level management is going to succeed you need to have the right person accountable or the right level of leadership. This designee is normally the service level manager. The service level manager should be empowered and accountable for the following:

• Creating and updating the service catalog
• Defining and maintaining an effective SLM process, specifically in regard to the service level agreements (SLAs), operational level agreements (OLAs), and underpinning contracts (UCs)
• Updating the existing service improvement program (SIP) by reviewing the performance of the IT organization and improving performance where necessary.

Obviously all of the above are impossible to execute without the right tools, management repots are used to identify improvements and control the internal process. Some key reports that are commonly used in the service level management process are:

• the number of times an SLA was not fulfilled
• the cost of measuring and monitoring the SLA
• the progress of improvement actions
• customer satisfaction, based on survey complaints
• statistics about incidents, problems, and changes

At this point it is becoming clear that the ITIL Management Processes do not operate in a silo. This is also true with the Service Level Management process. The following is a list of the interdependencies between SLM and the other IT Service Management processes:

• Service desk - The service desk can provide feedback regarding user satisfaction of SLM. This feedback can be an indicator of customer satisfaction and ultimately loyalty. The service desk is also a good place to find the response and solution times that are needed when an event occurs with the provided service.
• Availability management – Service Level Management provides availability management with input about the required availability of the IT services. Availability management returns the favor by giving SLM information about the actual availability.
• Capacity management - Capacity management inputs information about the impact of a new service or the extension of an existing service has on capacity. Capacity management also reports if the use of a service is within the agreed thresholds. Service Level Management informs Capacity Management about the current and future usage of a service.
• Incident management and problem management - The time to respond and solve for both incident and problem management are defined by the service level agreement. This information creates an efficient measure of service. SLM uses this information to identify patterns and trend of incidents and problem to help clarify service level targets.
• Change management – The change management process will let the service level management process know if there was a change that affected service level agreement standards.
• Financial management – Financial management provides Service Level Management with the costs associated with providing the service, the charging methodology and the rate to be charged. This information is included in the development and final Service Level agreement.
• IT service continuity management - During the SLM process, agreements are made regarding continuity management measures and procedures. The measures and costs are then included in the SLA. Changes to the service and the SLA may require modification of the continuity measures and procedures.
• Security management - The security requirement agreements are defined in the SLA. Security management assures that the agreed security measures are implemented, monitored, and reported to the Service Level Management process.
• Configuration management - The creation or modification of a service or SLA will affect the configuration management database (CMDB). The CMDB is also used to report about the quality of the configuration items; this allows SLM to report about the quality of the service provided.