On SLM

On SLM

A contract generally involves at least 2 parties - one offering a service and the other consuming it. The basic idea of a contract is to formalize a business relationship, and may consist of one or more agreements, which define the contract terms.

Agreements in turn may contain language that deal with the specifics of the contract – such as an ETD, cost, options, and so on. These specifics would be the ‘targets.’

To make sure the defined work is getting done properly, there is a need to MEASURE the terms of the agreement. As an example, you can have a contract with a landscaper with an agreement that the work shall be finished in 5 days at the cost of, say, $1000. And if done early, a bonus of $50 would be offered; but if late, then a penalty of $50 would be assessed. This is a simple definition, but it gives enough information on how the work shall be done and the expected rewards/penalties.

In much the same way, IT shops that offer services to their customers have a strong need to be monitored and measured, with feedback coming in via surveys, data analysis, and direct customer comments.

What is the need to measure something like, for example, the amount of time taken to set up a virtual machine for a test environment requested by a QA team?

If you think about it, the advantages of a measurement/monitoring system are tremendous: Scope for improvement, increase in productivity, cost savings, more efficient use of resources, improvement in customer satisfaction – are just a few, as long as the data are being collected accurately and fairly, and are analyzed the right way.

For instance, you can’t fault the IT tech if the VM host itself develops a failed disk – it’s something that can’t be controlled, and thus cannot be counted towards the SLA (the Service Level Agreement).

What an SLM tool should do (terms/definitions/implementations may vary):

1. DEFINE contracts – the overarching buckets that holds everything
2. DEFINE agreements – sets of agreed-upon goals
3. DEFINE and TRACK targets – the actual definition and implementation details of the goals
4. DEFINE and TRACK milestones – how long to wait when an SLA is violated before taking action; or run certain tests at certain points in time during the project
5. DEFINE and EXECUTE actions – when milestones/SLAs are violated
6. DEFINE and TRACK penalties/rewards
7. REPORT on any aspect of the measured data (transforms data into information)

What can be measured? Anything. Absolutely anything, as long as the information about the measured entity can be parsed (mathematically/semantically). As an example, you could measure the amount of time taken to close out a customer issue, and you could also measure the number of times a customer has used the word “terrible.”

Let’s expand on the landscaping example.

CONTRACT – the document you sign to have the crew perform the work

AGREEMENT – that the overall cost will be $1000 and time to finish would be 5 days

TARGETS – cost, time estimate, number of people doing the work, number of bags of mulch, type and quality of top soil

MILESTONES/ACTIONS – at most grant an extra day; notify contractor if delay goes over allotted time

PENALTIES/REWARDS – bonus $50 for finishing before time; penalty $50 for being late

REPORT – give feedback to the contractor when work is done; post review on consumer websites

More later...(especially how things can plug into ITIL processes)