Service Level Management Process

Statement of Best Practice

The purpose of service level management is to ensure that all services are delivered to agreed achievable targets, accomplished through a constant cycle of reviewing IT services and through investigation of actions to correct or improve the level of service delivered.

  • Define, document, agree, monitor, measure, report and review the level of IT services provided and instigate corrective measures whenever appropriate
  • Provide and improve the relationship and communication with the business and customers in conjunction with business relationship management
  • Ensure that specific and measurable targets are developed for all IT services
  • Monitor and improve customer satisfaction with the quality of service delivered
  • Ensure that IT and the customers have a clear and unambiguous expectation of the level of service to be delivered
  • Ensure that even when all agreed targets are met, the levels of service delivered are subject to proactive, cost-effective continual improvement.

Contact

  • Assistant Director, IT Process and Planning: Bob Black
  • Process Owner: Bob Black
  • Process Sponsor: Troy Travis

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Service Owner: Individual responsible for the end-to-end operation and performance of a service against targets. Also known as Service Level Manager
  • Business Owner: The person(s) with whom the IT Service Owner partners to deliver value to the organization
  • Configuration Item Owner: The person(s) accountable for specific technology components that work together to deliver an IT Service
  • User: consumers of an IT service or related component
  • Process Manager: operational oversight of process activity for loggers and solvers on their team
  • Process Owner: accountable for the incident management process meeting organizational goals and process targets
  • LT Sponsor: Sitting leadership team member who has ultimate accountability for the design and delivery of a particular service. They work closely with the process/service owner to ensure success.

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Activity

SLM Process Owner

Service Catalog Owner

LT

Service Level Manager

Configuration Item Owner

Select services for conducting service review sessions

A/C

I

R

I

I

Schedule service review with service owner and important stakeholders

R

  

A/C

C

C

Prepare service review artifacts

A/R

    

C

C

Participate in service review

A/R

C

I

R

R

Propose service improvement recommendations as appropriate

A

  

I

R

C

Facilitate lessons learned regarding this process

A/R

C

C

C

C

Update process policies with approved changes

A/R

I

I

I

I

Process Policies

  • Maturing service level management is iterative and incremental; service reviews will inevitably involve missing content that is created over time
  • Defining services for service catalog remains the domain of the service catalog process
  • Service level targets are negotiated with input from business stakeholders as well as underlying component owners; targets may not exceed the highest level possible from agreements of underlying components
  • IT Leadership team selects services for review each year in consultation with the Service level management process owner
  • Service level managers, configuration item owners, business relationship managers, and other key stakeholders actively participate in service reviews
  • Service reviews will incorporate existing materials; minimal effort will be made to create content prior to the review

Definitions 

  • Artifact: Documentation of a result of a step of system development in software or systems engineering. There are many instances of artifacts such as data models, requirements documents, software or system specifications, architecture descriptions, program modules, test cases, quality requirements, reports, etc.

Related Documents, Forms, and Tools 

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