A provider drafts service targets internally, publishes them on the intranet, and treats them as the agreed service levels. Which requirement for a successful service level agreement has been missed?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail medium
Draft — not checked yet. This question was written from the published exam objectives and cites the clause it comes from, but nobody has yet read it against that clause and signed for it.
It is kept out of search results and out of mock exams until they have. Read the source below before you take the answer as settled.
The options
Not correct An SLA must be stored in the configuration management system so that it can be traced to the underlying components
Where the document is stored has no bearing on whether it represents an agreement. This is a records-management concern, not a requirement for a successful SLA.
Not correct An SLA must be signed by a senior executive before it takes effect
A signature is a formality some organizations use, but the substantive requirement is genuine two-way engagement, not who countersigns the document.
Not correct An SLA must be reviewed annually and reissued with a new version number
Regular review is good practice, but nothing about this scenario concerns the review cycle. The defect is that the consumer was never party to the agreement at all.
Correct An SLA must reflect an actual agreement, reached through engagement and discussion between the provider and the service consumer
Correct. The word 'agreement' is doing real work: targets imposed by one party are not an SLA, however well written they are.
Why
Among the requirements for successful SLAs, one is that the document genuinely reflects an agreement — that is, it comes out of engagement and discussion between provider and consumer. Publishing unilaterally produces a target list, not an agreement, and the consumer has no reason to accept it as a fair measure of the service.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
- What it says
- Successful SLAs must reflect an 'agreement': engagement and discussion between the service provider and the service consumer.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.