Artifacts and agreements

As a service delivery manager, you have a relationship with your customers. That relationship will give you the ability to work through issues with your customer in a constructive way, and the better your relationship, the better off you will be. This is a good thing! It is part and parcel of the job that you have managing service delivery.

However, there is an old saying back where I come from: "Good fences make good neighbors." What this means is that agreements with strong boundary lines that are clearly and properly (and legally!) defined are key to a good relationship. Without those "fences" being drawn, where people can always see them, nobody knows what is owned by whom. So, it is always good to have those agreements.

However, there is one more critical thing that you have to do whenever you make an agreement - make sure you have an artifact from that person in that role specifying the agreement. That artifact is one of your "fence" posts with which you define what is in your scope and what is not.

Why is this so important? Well, think about it this way - suppose you and a neighbor have a long argument about where your property lines lie. Let's say that after 6 months you argue it out finally and agree where the boundaries actually are. You know where they are and your neighbor knows, but you never mark it down or document where that agreement is? What happens when your neighbor moves and you get a new neighbor?

Your argument will start all over again! And all that time will be wasted.

Today, people change roles more often than they tend to change property, so you need to get that artifact before your counterpart moves on - unless that happens, and if you happen to get someone who is disagreeable to your previous arrangement and would not take it on your word that this was the previous agreement, then get it in writing! That way you have that fence down and marked so no one has any confusion and they cannot argue out of the agreement at a later date just because they might be feeling cranky.

Note, sometimes, you may need to do the same thing from those whom you are over as well. Your own employees may forget that they agreed to work a certain way, and without that artifact from them you will have no leverage to push them back if they forget or are replaced.