Draft SLA clauses that specify measurable availability, response and resolution targets tied to business impact.
Information & Communications Technology
Writing IT Service Level Agreements and Operational Level Agreements
Draft enforceable SLAs and OLAs that define measurable service targets, escalation paths and penalty clauses between IT, vendors and internal teams.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Many IT organisations sign service agreements that look precise on paper but collapse the first time a major incident forces a dispute over who owed what to whom. This course focuses on the practical craft of drafting service level agreements between IT and the business, and operational level agreements between internal teams and third-party suppliers, so that every commitment is measurable, attributable and enforceable. Participants work through real clause structures covering availability targets, response and resolution time tiers, service credits, exclusions and force majeure, then map how an SLA breach cascades into the OLAs and underpinning contracts that actually deliver the service. Sessions cover metric selection using established IT service management practice, baselining current performance before setting targets, and building a RACI for service reporting and dispute resolution. The course closes with a structured review workshop where each participant redlines a draft agreement against a checklist of common negotiation traps.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Distinguish SLA, OLA and underpinning contract obligations and map how a breach cascades between them.
Design service credit and penalty structures that are proportionate, enforceable and free of perverse incentives.
Build a RACI matrix for service reporting, escalation and dispute resolution across IT and supplier teams.
Apply established IT service management practice to select metrics that reflect actual customer experience rather than vanity statistics.
Negotiate exclusion clauses, maintenance windows and force majeure terms without eroding accountability.
Run a structured SLA review workshop that renegotiates targets as services and dependencies change.
Who Should Attend
IT service managers negotiating agreements with internal business units and external suppliers.
Vendor management and procurement staff responsible for underpinning contracts.
Service delivery managers accountable for meeting contractual performance targets.
IT contract and commercial teams drafting or reviewing technology agreements.
Operations managers who own OLAs between infrastructure, network and application support teams.
Programme and project managers introducing new services that require formal service agreements.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Mapping Service Commitments Across the Supply Chain
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Distinguishing SLAs, OLAs and Underpinning Contracts
- Define the chain of accountability from customer-facing SLA through internal OLAs to third-party underpinning contracts.
- Trace how a single availability target decomposes into component targets owed by network, hosting and application teams.
- Identify gaps where no internal agreement covers a dependency that the external SLA still promises.
- Use a service dependency map to show which OLA breach would cause which SLA breach.
Session 2Baselining Current Performance Before Setting Targets
- Extract twelve months of incident, availability and ticket data to establish a realistic performance baseline.
- Separate planned maintenance downtime from unplanned outages when calculating historical availability.
- Test proposed targets against baseline data to avoid committing to service levels the current architecture cannot meet.
- Document assumptions and exclusions so future disputes can be traced back to the agreed baseline.
02Metric Selection and Measurement Design
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Choosing Metrics That Reflect Customer Experience
- Apply established IT service management practice to select outcome-based metrics over purely technical uptime figures.
- Differentiate availability, response time, resolution time and first-contact resolution metrics by service type.
- Weight metrics so a single SLA score cannot mask a critical failure hidden among minor successes.
- Define measurement windows, exclusion periods and rounding rules that both parties can independently reproduce.
Session 2Building the Reporting and Dashboard Framework
- Specify data sources, collection frequency and validation steps for each contracted metric.
- Design a monthly service report template that shows trend, target, actual and root cause for breaches.
- Agree a dispute process for contested measurements before the first report is ever published.
- Automate metric extraction from monitoring and ticketing tools to reduce manual reporting errors.
03Drafting Enforceable Clauses
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Service Credits, Penalties and Incentive Design
- Structure service credit tiers that scale with breach severity without becoming a target ceiling.
- Avoid penalty clauses that create incentives to hide incidents rather than resolve them quickly.
- Cap aggregate liability while preserving a meaningful consequence for repeated breaches.
- Model the financial exposure of proposed credit structures against historical breach frequency.
Session 2Exclusions, Maintenance Windows and Force Majeure
- Draft maintenance window clauses that balance planned change with minimal service disruption.
- Define force majeure and third-party dependency exclusions without giving either side unlimited cover.
- Set change freeze periods around critical business events and tie them into the agreement.
- Write termination and step-in rights that apply when persistent breaches are not remedied.
04Governance, Negotiation and Renewal
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1RACI and Escalation for Service Governance
- Build a RACI matrix covering reporting, escalation, review and sign-off for every agreement.
- Design a tiered escalation path from service desk through service owner to executive sponsor.
- Schedule periodic service review meetings with a fixed agenda for breach analysis and target renegotiation.
- Assign an agreement owner accountable for keeping clauses aligned with the live architecture.
Session 2Negotiation Workshop and Continuous Improvement
- Redline a draft SLA against a checklist of common ambiguity and enforceability traps.
- Practise negotiating target trade-offs between cost, risk appetite and service criticality.
- Plan a renegotiation cycle triggered by architecture changes, mergers or new regulatory requirements.
- Close the course by presenting a complete SLA and supporting OLA pack for peer review.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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