The wax-on & wax-off of SLM

I am a great fan of analogies. I think it makes it so much easier for people to understand the service management theory if they can relate it to something already very familiar. My favourite one for describing the essence of a service (delivering value without the ownership of specific costs and risks) is public transport:

• You use the bus (or train) without worrying about the mechanics (bus-technology, maintenance, etc.)
• You pay a fixed-price every time (not related to variable fuel-prices, drivers-salaries etc.)
• It gets you where you want to go, in a certain time (=value)

Whilst there is still costs (the fare) and risks (you could have an accident), you don’t have to worry about these and can instead concentrate on other things during the journey (in my case angry birds).

I could go on-and-on about this and other analogies (and probably will, but in other blogs) but for this time I want to look at the one I use to explain the activities of the Service Level Management (SLM) process. In fact this is not so much an analogy, but a ‘depiction’ with a reference to pop-culture.

It is based on an old (v2) diagram showing the different activities in two circles. The first cycle is around the ‘define-document-&-agree’, the second ‘monitor-measure-&-report’. Originally these circles rotate similarly (clockwise), but in my depiction I have turned one around so they turn ‘into each other’. This way they become the wax-on and wax-off of SLM (the pop-culture reference to the Karate Kid, either the original or the half-hearted remake with Will Smith’s kid and Jackie Chan as Mr. Miagi).

Apart from (hopefully) a good laugh, and a great way of memorising the various activities, I think there is also a lot of benefit in this depiction:

The two circles represent two distinct activity-streams within Service Level Management. I have earlier retold how the perception of the Design (and Strategy) processes is not that of one with a single input and a linear set of activities leading to a single outcome\deliverable. But rather multiple activity streams based on several distinct inputs and outcomes.

‘Define-document-&-agree’ (wax-on) is the Design-stream, in which SLM negotiates with the Customers (and with the various technical functions and other design processes) to establish the Service Level Agreements (SLA), Operational Level Agreement (OLA) and Underpinning Contracts. These documents will form the basis of the further Service delivery (through Transition and into Operations) as they identify the service levels and targets to be achieved.

Those achievements are the basis for the ‘monitor-measure-&-report’ cycle (wax off) which occurs more in Operations. The operations processes (event & incident management, request fulfilment …) provide operational reports, which (together with those from the other processes such as change, capacity, availability … management) give an overview of the service delivery against the designed agreements.

The two cycles don’t operate independently: the output of the wax-on cycle (SLAs) forms the basis of the wax-off cycle. The output of the wax-off cycle (reports) are fed into the ‘review’ activity, which links this cycle back to the wax-on one: if the reports indicate a service shortfall, opportunity for improvement or and changed business requirement, we have to restart the wax-on of ‘define-document-agree’. The review activity therefor sits in the middle connecting the wax-on and wax-off.

Of course we can further detail this depiction by entering Service Improvement (and Quality) Plans into it, or linking it to complimentary processes, CSI in particular (but also some of the Strategy ones). But why complicate things when a ‘simple’ diagram can provide enough insight for a good understanding of the objective and activities of the SLM process.

I think simplicity is a key in teaching the ITIL basics\foundations. Simplicity without condescending, if we can clarify the complex concept of interrelated processes in terms of depictions and analogies, we can spread the understanding of service management to a much larger audience (zealots like myself, and probably you, can then further discuss the finer details!).

the ITIL Zealot
December 2012