Service Level Agreement 2: our service offer

It is one thing to sell a Service Level (anybody with a pretty necktie can do it) and to be able to fulfil the commitment (ie: do some real work without Power Point).

To do that, you must be able to get from your technical teams a “Service Offer”. It is not as easy as it seems, though. Technical teams are full of technicians (hopefully). They are here to put their hands into dirty machines, to solve hard(ware) problems, and their background comes from laboratories, universities, technical courses… Not from commercial courses and MBA.

Thus, relations are sometimes strenuous between the “IT commercials” who sell the Service Provision and the corresponding Service Level, and the technical teams, who have the burden on their shoulders. Like “What the f*ck ? You sold what? 99% availability on all platforms, round the clock?”. Many of them don’t actually know what a SLA is, or why it matters. Some people even think that the technicians don’t even know what “Client” of “Business” means. Perhaps there is no ASCII or binary equivalent.

Anyway, to do the techs full justice, many commercials selling the SLAs don’t know the difference between a Mainframe and a LAMP server, or between ORACLE, a pair of socks and a frying pan.