13.14 Service Levels

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You need to sit down with the appropriate parties to map out the operational aspect of your rollout. Beneficiaries need to be a part of this conversation. This is partly an educational activity, partly expectation management, and all business, particularly if the beneficiary is paying the bills. To be sure we are on the same page, let us define "service levels." In my mind, the term proscribes the operational parameters within which the project deliverable must function once it has been put into production. Exhibit 9 presents the appropriate components of service level agreements.

Exhibit 9: Service Level Agreement (SLA) Components

SLA Component	Description
Availability	User access (e.g., 24/7), maintenance windows.
Authentication	Password and profile maintenance.
Access	Many applications have a user license constraint (i.e., only 50 concurrent users). Universal access is common but cannot be assumed.
Performance	May or may not be appropriate.
Backups	Frequency and type of backups, and the disposition of tapes for archiving.
DR	If required.
Business continuity	If required.
Escalation	Help desk numbers, response and resolution times, escalation lists.
Fault management	Specify monitoring tools, processes to be monitored, response and resolution times, escalation lists.
Links or dependencies	Support of automated data feeds (e.g., from mainframe to UNIX server).

I am not too sure that project managers do a good job with this. Again, having these types of conversations with customers or beneficiaries puts you in a position of strength in terms of facilitating risk sharing, as well as work sharing, with the end-user community. In addition to the educational value, this provides an excellent opportunity for expectation management. Specifically, assumptions can be aired. For instance, the customer may wish to drag DR into project scope. You must take the opportunity to mention that DR is out of scope and unfunded but that a plan can be negotiated whereby they can provide the incremental resources necessary to incorporate the implementation of DR into the overall plan. If this conversation is held early on, it is far different from the beneficiary asking, "Where is my DR?" about 2 weeks before the production turnup date. Therefore, having this service-level dialog with beneficiaries early in the project provides an excellent opportunity to avoid scope creep and engage the beneficiary in ways that help, rather than hinder, the project.

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