It is not at all uncommon for people to be appointed to a job or role with little more than a job description to guide them on the purpose and objectives of the role (and sometimes even that is absent). Regardless of whether the role of service level manager (SLM) is a new or existing one, as the role holder, you will need more than a job description to make a success of it.

Having held this position for a number of years, I am delighted to be given the chance by BCS to help you in this role. If you are such a person, or aspire to be one, my hope is that this book will provide you with useful information in support of both establishing a professional and valued service level management process and an enjoyable role that will contribute to a mutually beneficial relationship with your business colleagues and further your career.

I hope this book is equally relevant to your colleagues who depend on the success of your role, including your peers and managers. By taking a considered and professional approach to your role, you can absolutely make a positive and lasting contribution to the management and delivery of efficient and effective IT services.

An effective SLM is a vital asset for a customer-focused IT provider. The management and delivery of quality IT services is most often undertaken through application of the ITIL framework. This is a long-established, mature and globally adopted library of practical guidance focusing primarily on the 26 key processes associated with service management. The service level management process is one of these ITIL processes and it is instrumental in developing an effective relationship between service provider and customer. Get it right and just about everything that IT does thereafter can and should be focused on meeting the agreed and documented requirements of the business community, encapsulated in the service level agreements (SLAs).

Yet it can be challenging to find guidance for your role or for the organisation expecting positive and lasting results from it.

The role of an SLM spans both IT and its stakeholders and is instrumental in managing business requirements and expectations. If you carry it out effectively, it can enhance the perception of IT as a competent and professional service provider. It is one of a relatively small number of IT roles that shouldn’t be founded on a purely technological capability but requires the classic business skills of communication, negotiation, patience and understanding, as well as the support you receive from your colleagues, peers and the senior IT leadership team.

Despite the fact that most organisations recognise the value of service level management as a process, they still find it challenging to adopt, particularly if the SLM lacks the skills, experience or authority within the organisation.

While the focus of this book is primarily on the role of the SLM within an internal service provider, the responsibilities and concepts are entirely relevant within a managed service environment, where the role tends to be referred to as service delivery manager (SDM). However, the two should be considered synonymous, and if you are in this role, please consider the principles to be equally relevant.

From an organisational perspective, setting up and managing both the service level management process and the SLM role are activities littered with trip wires. Common mistakes I’ve seen include the SLM opening discussions with stakeholders about their service level requirements and even starting to draft the SLA before being aware of IT’s performance capabilities and limitations – an approach almost certainly doomed to failure.

I’ve also seen, on many occasions, documents masquerading as SLAs that are, in practice, what is often referred to as a ‘declaration of intent’ or ‘definition of service’. The difference is that an SLA should be negotiated and should satisfy both the customer’s and the service provider’s objectives, whereas the declaration of intent or definition of service is a unilateral, one-sided commitment offered by one party to the other on an implied ‘take it or leave it’ basis.

Other tenets of good practice that I have seen broken are:

As an effective SLM, you will recognise and manage these potential hazards, guide your organisation through them and build an increasingly closer and mutually beneficial relationship between yourselves as the service provider and your customers.

I write this book to share with you advice and guidance on the effective definition and performance of this role, based on a combination of my own personal experience, including my successes and mistakes and subsequent learning, as well as the wealth of documented good practice included within the ITIL framework. For a practising or aspiring SLM, the aim of this book is to help you to develop your role into an effective contributor to the delivery of a professional and valued service.