Setting Up a Service Level Management Process
A service level management system ensures that all IT services offered to customers meet agreed-upon standards of quality. It is about ensuring that Service Level Agreements are in place and are being followed, as well as measuring and reporting on the service levels, and constantly striving to improve service levels over time.
To achieve this, it is crucial to have the necessary tools in place. Often the processes and systems used to define service levels http://www.slm-info.org are contracted out to third parties. Therefore, it is essential to know how to manage them in the context of your own SLM processes.
The first step to setting up an SLM process is to identify which services are essential for the business, and then establish reasonable metrics for success. This will include factors like efficiency, user base, and design aspects. It is also essential to select the right expertise in technology For instance an organization that specializes in a particular platform may be able to commit to higher levels of performance than a more generalised service provider.
Once the SLA targets are set then teams need to devise a plan to maintain them. This typically means implementing systems that track the progress of the team and notify them immediately when there is a problem with meeting targets.
In addition, a robust SLM process will have built-in continuous improvement processes. These processes will enable teams to learn and improve by analyzing the data they track. For instance, if an NOC service is often not able to meet its SLA for answering telephone calls within 30 seconds It should be possible to figure out the reason why this is happening and then correct it.