Implementing Service-Level Agreements

One stumbling block to implementing service management initiatives in government is how to go about crafting effective internal and external service-level agreements (SLAs).

In government shops, even though service commitments exist between IT and publicly funded agencies, those SLAs are generally considered internal to the state or government operation. External SLAs are agreements with outside service providers used to outsource some aspect of IT functionality.

Internal SLAs must be measured and monitored in the same way as external SLAs. The difference is gaining access to real metric information collected by third parties, though this is becoming easier as toolsets have matured. In addition to monitoring and measuring SLAs, addressing consequences of degraded service is also quite different for internal versus external SLAs. Internal SLAs can be difficult to enforce, especially in some government organizations that might have limited funding to guarantee resources for adequate IT infrastructure investments. External SLAs, on the other hand, must be monitored proactively to make sure expected value is being delivered — a critical factor when spending taxpayer dollars.

Understanding the SLA Process

Service level management (SLM) seeks to tie the organization’s objectives to IT and then to measure those objectives in a tangible way. More than other areas of technology, this forces IT shops to understand the business requirements in detail before considering any SLM solution. Services in state and local government might involve supporting the distribution of food stamps to needy families, processing vehicle registrations and tax bills, or providing access to police records. The nature of these activities differs greatly from commercial operations, and many are personal in nature. Service quality is perhaps even more important than in other endeavors

This year, 82 percent of respondents report they’ve implemented SLAs, either internally or externally, or both. Government organizations are right in line with other industries, with 75 percent saying they have implemented internal or external SLAs — 25 percent with external SLAs. Most government shops either rely on service provider data (37.5 percent) or do not measure (50 percent) service performance at all for these outsourced services. This finding stands in contrast to the majority (75 percent) of government entities that indicated it is important to govern outsourcing relationships.

For many years, educating organizations has been the top challenge for SLM. In Enterprise Management Associates’ 2007 research, this remained the case for all vertical segments including government responses, with 37.5 percent concurring with this assessment. Other SLM deployment challenges for government respondents were integrating toolsets to measure SLAs (25 percent), articulating SLA language (25 percent) and securing funding for SLM initiatives (12.5 percent). Most verticals show similar results.

The interesting contrast in the government group arises when comparing challenges to priorities. While educating the organization is the biggest challenge, it is not the top priority. Defining and prioritizing services, articulating SLA language, integrating toolsets for SLA measurement, and instituting service costing were all higher priorities. This is interesting and suggests that government groups are trying to approach service management from a number of different perspectives — taking on the very difficult deployment tasks at the same time they are articulating the need to government employees and leaders.