Operational Level Agreement (OLA)

[netcatinn]

Dear all,

I am a bit confused on the OLA definition, thought somebody could help me with it. Well, the issue I got at hand is something like this

I am planning to develop an OLA with the HR dept of ours and I am stuck up with the term "Supplier" and "Consumer". To give a better understanding , lemme give the scenario. We as the IT dept of the company, we provide the IT services to the business .And as a part of the IT security mgmt , we need to know about the employee details (like termination, new employee joining , employee transfer etc).Now to achieve this information we enter into an OLA with the HR dept ( I believe this is how to do it). Here in the OLA who is the supplier and who is the consumer ? is the HR dept the supplier as they provide the required information or is it the IT dept which is the supplier that provides the IT services as mentioned in the SLA.

All comments are most welcome.

cheers..

./netcat[/b]

[Ed]

I got the job of developing an OLA between the Service Support Manager and myself as Change Manager. We ripped the SLA as given in the Green book 'Planning to Implement Service Management'

I have cut and pasted our effort

Regards

Ed

Change Management Operational Level Agreement
OPERATIONAL LEVEL AGREEMENT
FOR THE
Data Centre Change Management Process
Version 1.1
03/06/04
Author: Ed Wadey
OPERATIONAL LEVEL AGREEMENT FOR THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
This agreement is made between IT Operations Manager and Change Control Coordinator.
This agreement remains valid until superseded by a revised agreement mutually endorsed by the signatories below. The agreement will be reviewed annually. Minor Changes may be recorded on the form at the end of the agreement, providing they are mutually endorsed by the two parties.
Signatories:
Name................................ Position............................ Date ...............
Name................................ Position............................ Date ...............
Details of previous amendments:
Service Description:
The agreement covers the provision and support of the Change Management Process, which is in place to ensure that standardised methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all Changes. This is to minimize the impact of any related incidents upon service delivery.
The Change Management Process is described in the following documents
CM Policy Statement1.1.doc
Change Control Process 2a.jpg
Change Control Process 2a.vsd-this is a Visio file and is the same as the jpg file
Service Hours
The Change Management service is available Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays) from 08.30 – 16.00.
There is an out of hour’s service, which operates on an emergency basis and only for mission critical exceptions. This would be requested through the 24/7 (e.g. weekends, public holidays etc). This is done on a best endeavours basis.
During sickness or holidays for the PCMS Change Coordinator the process will be supervised by an IT Operations Shift Leader or the IT Operations Manager.
If you wish make a change to the service hours of this process then please see the PCMS Change Coordinator or the IT Operations Manager.
Service Availability
The target for the availability of the service is 95 %.
This will be measured by the availability of the Change Co-ordinator role to accept and authorise changes within the service hours stated above. This is then reported on monthly within the Monthly Change Management Report.
Reliability
No more than 1 break of service per month. A break in the service is when the Change Coordinator or delegate is not available in the service hours set out above to authorise changes for longer than 4 hours.
Failure will be report in the monthly Change Management Report.
Customer Support
The Change Control Coordinator is based in PCMS house, Coventry on the 1st floor of the middle building. The coordinator is available for reference on any query regarding the process. Telephone extension 2536.
Queries or complaints can also be forwarded to the Change Management e-mail address:- changecontrol@pcmsgroup.com.
Any queries sent to the e-mail address will be responded to within 4 hours.
There is a FAQ document available on the website where you log the changes. Change Control FAQ.doc

Service Performance
The targets of the Change functions are:-
Emergency Changes below 10% of changes. Measured quarterly.
Failed Changes to be below 5%. Measured quarterly.
All changes reviewed within 10 working days after implementation.
User group meeting every month chaired by Change Control coordinator. Minutes to be produced for this meeting within 3 working days.
The monthly Change Management report is to be published by 5th working day after the end of the month.
Change Management Procedures
All changes to the documentation and process to go through the change management process for sign off.
IT Service Continuity
If the electronic system is unavailable for longer than one working day the process will revert to the paper based system. The templates for this are in the following folder:-
\\pcms-fs01\global\Change Control
Charging (if applicable)
This is not a free service and when sold onto customers the rule of thumb is £100 per change.
Service Reviews
The service will be reviewed quarterly by the Data Centre Manager, IT Operations Manager, Infrastructure Manager and Change Control Coordinator.
The review will be done against this OLA and the performance of the Change Coordinator.
Glossary
Explanation of any unavoidable abbreviations or terminology used, to assist Customer understanding.

Amendment Sheet
To include a record of any agreed amendments, with details of amendments, dates and signatories.


I hope this helps

[jpgilles]

Hi,

I guess in your case , the HR Department is the Supplier.
The OLA you are designing does not cover any service YOU (IT) provide to the HR department, but rather services that HR must provide to you, in order for you to meet your SLA towards your own customers.

Just imagine that HR department would be outsourced to an external company: then you would require an UC to be signed with them, as your supplier.

Hope this helps.

rgds.
_________________
JP Gilles