Service Level Understanding

"Service Level Understanding" is a term for a process of reconciling communication and expectations between two teams that work together. It is deliberately named differently than "Service Level Agreement" because it does not include a contractual element. The key elements include:
 * Each team enumerates their expectations of the other team
 * Expectations are developed more deeply - I need X from this team, which probably needs Y to make that possible
 * Each team attempts to guess at the other team's perspective
 * Each team reconciles their beliefs with the other team's beliefs
 * Teams attempt to identify structural barriers to success
 * Most of this occurs in writing and without face-to-face meeting between the teams

Procedure

 * 1) Identify participating teams
 * 2) Identify participants on each team (could work from team lead's opinion, but should also give all team members a chance to participate)
 * 3) Facilitator meets with each team to complete the first half of the template
 * 4) Facilitator meets with each team to share other team's answers, reconcile, and decide on what to share
 * 5) Facilitator meets with the two teams together

Facilitator notes
We are looking to uncover in particular the following:
 * Outright mismatches in expectations, e.g., Team X expects Team Y to produce a deliverable but Team Y doesn't view Team X as a customer
 * underlying unresolved conflicts, e.g., Team X expects Team Y to provide x hours per month of support but Team Y doesn't have enough people to do this
 * things that could be built for the future
 * things that are going well now but may need attention before they stop working (succession plan; things someone may stop doing)
 * e.g., Team X depends on Team Y's deliverable, but Team Y was planning to stop providing it because they didn't think anyone was using it.

Template
Service Level Understanding between Team X & Team Y

Team X

Team Y