The Service Level Management process

SLM is a vital organization function. The goal of SLM is to ensure that the customers' expectations are met in line with formal published agreements. We must be able to consistently capture the inputs, and accurately report on the adherence or non-compliance to the agreed SLM objectives. We must have organization buy-in and a full understanding of SLM through official ITIL© material, or appropriate training in the SLM discipline.

SLM is the key to all processes and functions in ITIL©. The common area in SLM is Service Level Agreements (SLAs. We will use Incident Management and Service Request Fulfillment to implement this:

Service Level Management is what we use to ensure that IT capabilities are aligned with customer expectations of the services provided by IT. The successful implementation of SLM involves creating agreements between the supplier of services (IT and supporting third parties), and the consumer of the services (business customers). A driver for successful SLM is when an organization commits to compliance with industry-recognized standards. The following standards are typical drivers:

The overall goal is to ensure services are delivered at the right cost to the expectations of the service consumers. SLM is at its most effective when we create credible agreements, report proactively on performance of the service, and accurately capture the service consumer's feedback (for example, using customer satisfaction surveys).