The Complete Guide to IT Service Level Agreements: Aligning IT Service to Business Needs (3rd Edition) (Service Level Management) 3rd ed. Edition

I am very reluctant to write negative reviews of books. Once in a while, however, one comes along that I can't in good conscience look the other way about. "The Complete Guide to IT Service Level Agreements: Aligning IT Service to Business Needs (3rd Edition)" is one of those.Based on the table of contents, I had very high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, the value to me of the contents of this book (which, if it had been typeset, printed and bound like a "real" book, would only have been about 100 pages long) reminded me of something I'd expect to get from a TV infomercial for "getting government grants you never have to pay back!" (i.e., superficial and mostly useless).This book skims the surface of most of the topics it touches on like a stone skipping over a lake. There's less "meat" in this book than in any of the several other books I've read on this topic. This book had less useful information on the topic of SLAs than what I got off the Internet for free.Case in point: I bought this book specifically for the contents of Chapter 3 "HOW SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS APPLY IN AN APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT". The "chapter" was only six pages long (lots of white space in the margins, 1-1/2 line spacing). I read it three times, wondering if I had missed something. (I hadn't; I've subsequently read excellent treatments of this topic elsewhere).This book wouldn't be a worthwhile purchase at $16.90, much less $169.00. I gave it one star because you can't give zero stars.P.S. How do the author and publisher justify continuing to create "revised" versions of this book that are still so heavily focused on mainframe issues? ("Daddy, what's a mainframe?" "Son, it's a dinosaur, like 8-track tapes.")

Bought this few years back but forgotten to review it. Easy to understand and a good book to read.

and I bought the book anyway. Needless to say, it was all too true. I returned the book and am waiting on my refund.* Nothing new in here! Even the small(!) section with examples!* Typos* Huge margins, the book could have been much less thick (should have been much less thick)* Totally outrageous cost!!

The Complete Guide To IT Service Level Agreements - Matching Service Quality to Business Needs - Andrew HilesAUTHOR'S NOTEThis book contains real examples of SLAs from real consulting assignments of a variety of SLAs in different environments: it has checklists and other information useful to guide the reader.The need for effective SLAs has never been greater. From the compliance side, the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is to bring Information & Communications Technology (ICT).within the scope of corporate governance. Many organizations are implementing CobiT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) as a tool to evidence ICT governance as well as being a sound tools for business-ICT alignment and ICT management. Within the Delivery and Support Domain of CobiT, Processes DS1, DS2 and DS3 require SLAs.Under the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) methodology (again being implemented by leading organizations worldwide) the Service Management and Supplier Management aspects require Service Level Agreements. ITIL forms the basis for British Standard 15000 in IT Service Management - a standard being put forward, with the support of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and IBM to an International Standards Organization standard. IS 9000 2000 enterprises must therefore seriously consider implementing SLAs as part of their quality programs. Equally, under the Baldrige Quality requirements, Category 5, Process Management, qualification is supported by the use of SLAs.Many organizations have adopted Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard as the basis to align support departments' objectives and performance with the achievement of corporate strategy - and certainly ICT has been criticized for failing to do this. To quote Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate economist: "We see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics."Classic Balanced Scorecard implementations require identification of Mission, Critical Success Factors, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - and the definition and implementation of Service Levels (in business terms) supported by lower level technical performance indicators. Hit the technical numbers and you will hit the service levels. Hit the service levels, and you will hit the Key Performance Indicators. Hit the KPIs and you will achieve the Critical Success Factors and hence achieve your mission. However, the higher the level, the more likely it is that the performance data will come too later to adjust performance in time. KPIs tend to be lagging indicators, whereas timely reporting of performance at SLA level allows time to adjust performance before it is too late to meet the KPIs.ICT is increasingly being subject to Business Performance Measurement and SLAs are increasingly being phrased in business, rather than technical, terms. We have suggested that strategic SLAs by themselves could be used as a tool for ICT-Business alignment. Whether through use of the Balanced Scorecard or not, effective SLAs make a powerful contribution to business mission achievement.The concept of tiered SLAs helps to support this. This idea has been propounded by Uptime groups and others to support IC-business alignment; to justify IT infrastructure investment; and to simplify and rationalize Service Level management, delivery and reporting within ICT and with customers. But this concept is not the sole preserve of the enterprises that need five nines (99.999%) availability - it can equally well be used by those with more mundane and less demanding requirements.All these management theories, methodologies and practices have to live in the real world, against real restraints, and be applied across a wide range of industries, organizational structures, cultural differences, internal and national politics, technology platforms, ICT maturity and national infrastructure constraints. There is no `one size fits all'. The sensible approach is to be adept - adapt rather than adopt.It is easy for a world class global bank to look with disdain on the under-funded enterprise that has to struggle to replace obsolescent thinking, methods and technology. But in reality, the Fortune 5,000 companies are a tiny proportion of the perhaps 500 million or more that do not have the same justification, do not enjoy the same ICT investment, methodologies and processes - nor always have the same real-time issues. And some of those Fortune 5,000 actually depend on the smaller suppliers in which SLAs are less well developed and which face greater practical challenges in developing them. Supply chain dependency is increasing all the time.As an aside, this is being written from India, where some of the world's fastest-growing Business Process Outsourcing companies and other leading institutions from the sub-continent and Pacific Rim have come together to attend our workshops - the best attended, and we are happy to say, the best appreciated events that have been presented to date in this region. I leave from here to work in the Middle East, preparing for the region's upcoming major ICT Service Management Conference, while a colleague is preparing to deliver courses in China. In all these areas (and in many Small and Medium Enterprises in North America and Europe) SLA maturity is generally less well developed but the more dynamic public and private sector organizations are taking the concepts on board and translating the best practice of the biggest multinationals into their own pragmatic reality. We are proud and pleased to help them achieve this.This book, therefore, has been written with the objective, not so much for those already implementing best practice - that would be teaching them to suck eggs. However, even they may pick up the odd idea that might be helpful (a number of them are our clients). The object has been to provide a cross-section of practices and ideas from which those embarking on SLAs can pick, mix and adapt to suit their own situation.Andrew HilesBangaloreSeptember 2004

A few years ago I took on the role of CIO for a UK based organisation. Perhaps we were not the biggest IT operation in the world but we were supporting over 200 applications, had a Help Desk serving over 1,200 users and we had a number of significant enhancement and new development projects in train. We also had serious problems with user expectations, internal morale and the perceived quality of service delivery. Needless to say, SLA's were non-existant. Over a short period of time and in a very effective manner the author of this book helped us to establish meaningful and effective SLA's across our operation.This book, which encapsulates much of what Andrew helped us with, is one that I have subsequently used to get across the basics and the practicalities of SLA development and use to others.I have found the book practical, accessible, succinct and clear. Andrew has managed to distill what many see as an extremely complex subject to its essence of applied common sense. Of course, if common sense were truly common we wouldn't need the likes of this book to realise it.Thoroughly recommended as both an introduction to the topic and a handy reference guide.

As the publisher of this book, I feel compelled to respond to the June 17 review which criticized the editing and printing.I've personally reviewed the printed book, and found a few copies which had some minor printing errors. These have been recalled.We offer a free replacement to anybody dissatisfied with the print quality.As for typos, we've had a copy editor go over the content again, and correct a few which slipped through the first time. I welcome any specific corrections.