METRICS
Metrics can be used to assess both the effectiveness of the SLM process in delivering services to the standards agreed and the extent to which SLM is successful in managing the interface with the business.
Under the first heading, useful quantitative performance indicators would include:
• the frequency and severity of service breaches;
• the frequency and severity of threatened service breaches (near misses);
• the frequency and severity of breaches and threatened breaches resulting
from UCs;
• the frequency and severity of breaches and threatened breaches resulting
from OLAs;
• the number and percentage of SLA targets met;
• customer satisfaction with the process in relation to managing levels of service.
Measures under the second heading would include:
• the number and percentage of services with up-to-date SLAs;
• the frequency of service review meetings;
• the frequency of agreed reports delivered on time.
It is also important to assess customers’ views on how useful the process is to them. This can be addressed through surveys, but often a more telling indication can be obtained from the level of customer representation at review meetings, the extent to which representatives change from one meeting to the next and the quality of contribution to meetings. All of these are useful pointers to how people really feel about the process.
Metrics can also be put in place to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the SLM process. For example:
• The costs and time required to generate and agree new SLAs.
• The costs of monitoring and reporting on SLA achievements.
• The cost of monitoring and reporting of SLAs.
• The time required for developing and agreeing SLAs.
• The percentage of services covered by SLAs.
• The percentage of SLAs reviewed by their review dates.
• The number of SLAs found to be unsatisfactory and needing to be corrected.