Recommendations for defining agreements and service targets

Define the terms and conditions or data source for the service target.

• Define terms and conditions--For a request-based or availability service target, define terms and conditions to identify which requests or incidents, assets, or configuration items apply to a specific service target. For example, if the terms and conditions are 'Priority' = "Critical", then this service target would only apply if the priority of the incident is critical.
• Define KPI--For a performance-monitoring service target, define the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). For example, the selected KPI might be Application Response Time. Or several KPIs might be selected to form an expression where Application Response Time must be less than 5 seconds and Memory Usage must be less than 50%.
• Define service CI--For a service availability service target, (such as is used with Service Impact Manager), select the service, or other CI.

Define goals and costs

What is the goal for incident resolution time? What is the goal for application response time? What is the monetary impact on the business for every minute that this service target is missed?

Define measurements

Define the measurements for request or availability service targets. What statuses identify when the asset or configuration item being monitored is available or unavailable? Should the service target ever pause if the incident it is monitoring is pending information from the requester? These attributes are part of defining measurements for the service target.

Define milestones and actions

What proactive steps should be taken if an incident or other request is close to missing its goal? Proactively identify the processes to follow for notifying the assignees about the service target goal for the request, reminding them as they get closer to that goal, and escalating to their manager if progress is not being made.

Create agreement

After the service target is defined, it should be placed inside an agreement so that it can be monitored over various time periods and according to compliance goals.

Categorize the agreement as SLA, OLA, or underpinning contract.

Define the compliance target

How often does this agreement need to be met? For example, 98% of the time?

Add service targets

One or more service targets can be added to the agreement and weighted based on their importance.

Define review periods

How often does the compliance target need to be met? On a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis? Select one or more review periods.

Define milestones and actions

If compliance is at risk or is breached, what steps should be taken to prevent the business from being negatively impacted and to avoid penalties? Perhaps notifying the service level manager is appropriate here, or defining the steps to create an incident to track the compliance issue is appropriate.

Roll up into contract

The service level manager associates the agreement with the appropriate contract. If it is an OLA, it is associated with a contract for the IT organization. If it is an SLA for a particular customer or line of business, the agreement is associated to the contract defined for that customer. If it is a underpinning contract, then associate it with a contract created to represent the relationship between IT and the external vendor.

Calls to initiate actions in other applications

If the actions that have been defined make calls to other applications (such as Incident Management), the system will perform those steps when the milestone takes place.