Fern: Ok, so I want you to have Help Desk ready to visit my designers at their workstation at every minute of the working day
Beauty: No way buddy! That's impossible. I don't have the resources to do that.
Fern: Our Service Level Agreement requires that you do it.
Beauty: That is not strictly correct. The Agreement requires that we be reasonably available during working day to solve any problems your designers may have. It does not state that we must be walking the floor of your unit during every minute. Fern, my experience of you is that you are reasonable person, why do you feel that we need to take the support services to such an extreme?
Fern: You need to understand that my designers must have quick responses to their hardware problems, so that we do not disrupt our development processes.
Beauty: Yes, I do see how that is an important operational requirement for you. Tell me, do you agree that your designers do not have hardware problems every single minute of the working day?
Fern: I suppose that is true.
Beauty: OK then, I think I can do something with that. So do you think that your designers' processes would be looked after if my Help Desk officers are around at those moments when your designers actually experience their hardware problems?
Fern: Yes, I agree that my designers’ processes will be safe, as long as your Help Desk people are actually on the spot within a few minutes when hardware problems arise.
Beauty: What do you consider to be an adequate response time then? How many minutes is acceptable from the time the problem arises?
Fern: I think ten or fifteen minutes is a reasonable response time.
Beauty: OK, well I have a suggestion that may meet both our needs. I think that my Help Desk officers could do a quick walk of your floor every half hour to check on whether there are any problems. That way your designers are never more than 15 minutes away from a support officer being present on the floor. Do you think that would meet your support requirements adequately?
Fern: Yes, I think so.
Beauty: Excellent. Do you want to start running this practice from this afternoon?
Fern: Yes, that would be fine.
Beauty: OK, I'll tell my Help Desk officers about it now and I would also like to send an e-mail to all of your designers informing them of the new practice. Is that all right with you?
Fern: Yes, that's good.