People & Process Thoughts

SLA timers for every type of project

Time is the most precious human commodity, the one thing we can't store or accumulate. There is nothing we do that doesn't run against a clock and when we gather together in joint endeavour - like when we're in business with customers, suppliers, colleagues and stakeholders – the clock is the ticking king.

Given enough time it is almost impossible to fail at anything. Given insufficient time it is almost impossible to succeed. So it is crucial that when an approximate amount of time to complete an activity is known (and padded for contingency), somewhere a clock starts. The instigator needs to know when the task will be complete, the recipient of the task needs to know how much time they have to complete it, for their part at least and because we live in a world where s**t happens and balls get dropped, someone usually has to keep a managerial eye on things.

When the amount of time a task or activity can take is limited by contractual agreement, often with penalties, we call this a Service Level Agreement and all hell breaks loose if this is breached, or breached too often. But what about when there is no legal agreement? Does anyone care? Should anyone care?

The answer is that everyone should care. The difference between good and great is that good is great, done faster and bad is good, done late. Nothing takes no time should be printed in foot high letters and stuck on a prominent wall in every business, along with: if it overruns it's killing something! If nothing takes no time then things that overrun adversely impact every subsequent thing, no matter how small. This is why people work late, swearing under their breath at the boss who asked for something that was perceived as trivial, and which might well have been, but has impacted the rest of the day's work.

The solution? Gemini SLA capability lets you start a clock on any activity – writing code, submitting requests, fixing problems, responding to requests. If you think about it, everything has an element of the clock associated with it. Just start with the question what happens if I don't do it? Then move on to what happens if I don't do it by…?

Gemini tracks tasks, any tasks. If your tasks are governed by a contractual SLA then no doubt you already have SLA switched on, probably on your help desk ticketing, but you can take advantage of the all-inclusive, non-editioned nature of the product and add the necessary SLA functionality to any project by simply including it on your Project Templates. If you do, you just might find things running like clockwork.