"Repeatable" SLAs or OLAs are not enough! Organizations looking to extend their capabilities in Service Management using their ITIL alignment and visioning skills to truly set the foundation that is:

1. Well Defined in terms of owner, input, measures, and meanings.
2. Quantitatively managing the process controls for NEXT Optimization Requirements.
3. Optimizing means building the Service Management Process for continuous business alignment-- not as a 'checkpoint destination, but as a way of doing business with defined roles, responsibilities, and review/improve cycles.

KEY TERMINOLOGY TO AGREE AND DEFINE BEFORE BEGINNING:
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Service Level Agreement Operating Level Agreement (OLA): internal customer, internal supplier (IT operations to IT operations)
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

KEY SERVICE MANAGEMENT ROLES AND FUNCTIONS TO BE REPRESENTED IN SERVICE LEVELS:

"Goals", "Service Management", "Key Performance" are all lofty terms with business implications to Service Management and Operations. Make sure your Service Level Agreement Structure and Management has aligned construction, review, and improvement representation to address the key organizational functions representing the "resourcing" cost, people, and process aspects of "service" "management".

In Practice:

Christine MacLennan produced an excellent presentation on Achieving IT and Business Alignment through Service Level Management and Metrics.

What Service Level Management, Service Level Agreements, and Metrics DO for the business:

1. Unites the definition, metric, performance criteria and goals to improve it to the business needs.

2. Links the Service Level Agreements and Reporting Requirements to prioritze what is measured, what is important, and how it's managed.

3. Considered the business service in terms of holistic availability and performance from infrastructure to application, from service restoration to business continuity.

4. Service Level KPIs, Operating Level KPIs provide the detail necessary to measure the services consistently and presentation should not require a System Analyst to interpret if business value is met.