Re: [sig-policy] Prop 050(072) comments
I've been doing some work on an Service Level Agreement I'm involved in
and came across an article called Establishing Service Level Agreements
by Naomi Karten at http://www.nkarten.com/sla.html
In it was a section called Avoiding the "Just-in-Case" Syndrome which
seemed relevant to our discussions here on getting the small details of
this policy document sorted out. I've quoted part of here as it may help
us focus on what we need to do.
I'd still like to see us proceed with what we've already got consensus
on and trust the hostmasters at APNIC to "do the right thing".
Regards,
andy
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http://www.nkarten.com/sla.html#avoidjic
Avoiding the "Just-in-Case" Syndrome
In a company I visited to present a seminar on establishing service
level agreements, Jeremy, a fellow in the class, told me about his
intense frustration in attempting to finalize an SLA with an internal
customer.
"How long have you been working on it?" I asked him, thinking he'd say
three months, or perhaps six or even eight or nine months. "Oh, about
two years," he responded.
Two years?
A penchant for detail-mania
The problem, Jeremy explained, is that every time they got close to
declaring the agreement done, someone came up with another detail that
needed attention. This back-to-the-drawing-board mindset led to more
meetings, more discussions, more mumbling and grumbling, and more
opportunity to find yet another detail that needed attention. Needless
to say, a service level agreement still being nitpicked after two years
stands a good change of never being completed.
In my experience, the driving factor in this type of situation is
usually a fear on the part of one or both parties that they will be
trapped forever with whatever terms and conditions end up in the
agreement. Therefore, before declaring it complete, they'd better
anticipate and document every conceivable situation that might ever
arise. We'd better be prepared just in case, they tell themselves.
All these just-in-case details create a document that's so bogged down
with minutiae that managing it becomes impossible (assuming it's
actually completed and implemented). Furthermore, the presence of so
much detail fosters a sense of distrust that leads each party to
relentlessly watch for departures by the other from what they agreed to.