SLAs your team will actually follow

Service level agreements fail when they ignore reality: staffing caps, seasonal spikes, and the difference between customer-visible latency and internal busywork.

Start from historical throughput and queue depth. Targets derived from executive optimism invite chronic breach and cultural cynicism.

External versus internal promises

Separate what you promise customers from what you manage internally. Internal SLAs can be tighter and more granular; external commitments should stay simple and defensible.