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OPERATIONAL LEVEL AGREEMENT

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XYZ Company Operational Level Agreement Between XYZ and ZYD

©

Pink Elephant Inc.

This template accompanies the book Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog: A Practical Guide, second edition. ISBN: 978-0-9810811-0-6

Care has been taken to ensure that the original template is accurate and complete, however, the publisher, author anddistributor can accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions or for changes to the details given: for example any bespoking of the templates by individuals or organizations. These templates are not intended as a substitute for project specific legal advice which should always be sought where required.

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DEFINING IT SUCCESS THROUGH THE SERVICE CATALOG

Introduction
Operational LevelAgreements (OLA) are required to document the relationship and expectations between the different teams that comprise Service and Systems Delivery Departments. This document will provide you with the background information on how to set up and maintain an Operational Level Agreement.

What is an Operational Level Agreement?
An Operational Level Agreement is part of the Service Level Managementprocess. Service Level Management is a tactical process consisting of a number of activities aimed at translating business requirements of IT services into tangible, manageable and measurable solutions. IT’s position in the organization, therefore, should reflect the tactical nature of the process, which includes relationships with strategic processes such as business-IT alignment, customer liaison,planning and control and quality audit. In order to ensure that the levels of service delivery stipulated within any Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be supported and consistently achieved, it is important to coordinate the activities of functions within IT. This document is used to identify the boundaries and shared responsibilities between IT Service Delivery Partners. For example, sincebusiness applications are provided as a service to the business, the network must be available in order to gain access to those applications. The workstations provided must also be configured properly as well. The management of each of these three separate IT components resides with different IT departments. In an effort to coordinate the consistent delivery of standard levels of service, an OperationalLevel Agreement is created between the IT departments involved in service delivery. This agreement in turn brings clarity and understanding within IT regarding the functions of each group. With respect to the provision of support for each line of service described in the IT Service Catalog, OLAs need to be established between IT functions. The goal is to ultimately create an SLA and OLA scenario,where the OLA translates the service requirements from the business into operational requirements and commitments within IT to meet those service objectives.

Operational Level Agreements Activities
Creating and using operational level agreements is an iterative process. Business requirements and technology are constantly changing which may alter any IT capabilities. For these reasons, theprocess is built around the premise of continuously matching IT capabilities to changing business requirements. This process requires the periodic revisiting of existing operational level agreements. The frequency of the revision is something that requires consensus between the IT departments, as there is no right or wrong answer. The long-term target is for annual reviews, or after significantchanges within the infrastructure. It is understood that either partner may request a review at any time should events warrant. There are three main stages when setting up an Operational Level Agreement:

Defining
• Specific services that each IT department provides • Where in the IT cluster are Operational Level agreements needed? • What expectations and needs are there between the different...