Nahari Ami - Secrets of service level management: a process owners guide

Secrets of Service Level Management

A process owners guide

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The Stationery Office 2013

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First published 2013

ISBN 9780113313525

Printed in the United Kingdom for The Stationery Office, London

P002468774 c8 03/13

List of figures

List of tables

About the authoring team

THE AUTHOR

Ami Nahari

As an expert in the field of IT service management (ITSM), ITIL and service level management (SLM), Ami Nahari has assessed and implemented SLM processes for Fortune 100 companies. In addition to his 15 years of experience, he brings first-rate project management skills, a creative approach and proven leadership to his role as author.

PMI and ITIL V3 Expert certified, Ami has written articles and spoken extensively about the methodology he developed relating to IT service performance measurements and service level manager responsibilities. He holds a BS (Hons) in Political and Management Science from Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and shows real commitment and enthusiasm in all his chosen fields.

Ami has lived in Israel, Toronto, Ireland and San Francisco, and he currently resides in New York City.

THE CONTRIBUTORS

Craig J. LaCava

Craig J. LaCava has been an IT management and business consultant for more than 16 years. During his career, Craig has specialized in ITSM, IT strategy and planning, business continuity and IT governance. Craig has consulted with Fortune 100 companies across North America, Europe and Asia.

Craig earned the ITIL IT Service Manager certificate with distinction from the Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) in 2005 and now holds the ITIL V3 Expert certificate. He specializes in helping IT organizations to achieve more effective and efficient operations and governance through the adaptation of ITIL, ISO 20000 and other best-practice frameworks.

Craig holds a BS (Hons) in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Joe Fennis

Joe Fennis is a highly skilled SLM solutions designer and architect. Joe has worked in the ITSM domain for more than 12 years, specializing in service level agreement (SLA) management, and focusing on metric, key performance indicator (KPI) and SLA calculations. Joe has consulted and implemented several ITSM projects for companies in Australia, Europe and the United States.

Joe holds a Bachelor degree in information technology from Griffith University, Australia, and now lives and works in Belgium.

Acknowledgements

AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Tanya Benson and Kim Donica, who spent hours upon hours editing my chapters to ensure that the writing standards were high and that the guidance contained in this publication would be clear to all audiences. Beyond editing capabilities, both Tanya and Kim provided highly skilled ITSM feedback which helped the author immensely.

Other contributors include Khaled Aly, Eli Anhang, Mike Cartoscelli, Mike Efstathiou, Tzachi Golan, Molnar John, Yakov Kogan, Pascal Marat, Larissa Montrose, Kevin Mullen, Eitan Rafael, Eric Reich, Ross Richardson, Loren Shumway, Mark Stadtmueller, Kathy Steinway, Drew Terranova, Lloyd Turner, Mark Walter, Martin Williamson, Scott Wilson, Ivri Yair and David Zemon.

PUBLISHER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Stationery Office (TSO) would like to thank itSMF for its help in the quality assurance of this publication. Thanks are also due to those people who generously donated their time in reviewing this title, including George Kinnear of The Grey Matters, Paul Wigzel of Paul Wigzel Training and Consultancy, and Dot Tudor of TCC.

Preface

People ask me if I like to travel. Well, I like meeting new people and visiting new cultures, and I like escaping my daily routine and going on vacation, but all of these usually involve going through numerous airport security checks, which I dont like at all.

Recently, I flew from New York to Toronto. My flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30 p.m. and arrive at 8:00 p.m. The chaos in the airport was unbearable: it was difficult to get hold of the desk attendant; flights were being cancelled; and departure gates were being changed by the minute. Our plane finally left the gate at 7:00 p.m., and then taxied for more than an hour and a half until we were airborne at 8:30 p.m., to land in Toronto at 9:30 p.m. Many people missed their connecting flights and were forced to stay the night in the airport. Toronto was my destination but I, too, was delayed a while longer, as local immigration officials decided to take me through some additional inspection. Needless to say, my plans for the evening were ruined.

Examined through service management standards, my flight experience failed every single metric: response time, resolution time, performance, availability and, above all, customer satisfaction. This happened for one simple reason: there was no alternative service.

The objective of service level management (SLM) is to defy precisely that outcome. The process goal is to interface with the customer and ensure their satisfaction. SLM is a core ITIL process because it examines the actual quality of service as the customer perceives it and how happy the customer is with it. Happy is not an IT term and cannot be tracked by a monitoring tool, and that is why SLM is different from other processes.

You can have a service level agreement (SLA) report showing 100% scores for every objective, but if your customer satisfaction is lagging, you must start a new record in your continual service improvement (CSI) register and prioritize this item. Likewise, you may have an SLA report indicating warnings and even breaches in some of your objectives, but if your customers are happy, you must be doing something right.