XLA Confusion: Don’t Delay to Improve Their Business Impact

The IT world is collectively buying into the need for and benefits of experience level agreements (XLAs) and experience data. To demonstrate this, the 2022 Axelos IT Service Management (ITSM) Benchmarking Report found that “Only 9% of respondents thought their organizations would never see the need to improve employee experience.”

Does your organization actually need #XLA agreement documents to benefit from experience data? 'No' says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. Here he explains why. #ITSM #EX #ServiceDesk Share on X

Your IT organization might have bought in, too. However, creating the XLA agreements might be seen as “something to do later,” especially considering the effort involved in XLA creation. But does your organization actually need XLA agreement documents to benefit from experience data? The short answer is “no,” and this blog explains why, starting with the confusion between XLA agreements and XLA targets.

Déjà vu – the confusion between XLA agreements and XLA targets

The IT service management (ITSM) community now finds itself in a similar position with XLAs as it did with service level agreements (SLAs) – where the term SLA describes both service level agreements and the SLA targets within them.

Unfortunately, this confusion adversely affects the organizations looking to introduce XLAs to improve employee experiences and business operations and outcomes as a result. Many of these organizations will still view XLAs as agreement documents, while the thought leaders promoting the adoption of XLAs are referring to XLA targets.

This blog by @Joe_the_IT_Guy aims to clear up the confusion between XLA agreements and XLA targets. #XLA #ITSM #ServiceDesk #EX Share on X

It’s unfortunate because it potentially delays access to valuable experience data. Hopefully, this blog will help address the confusion, including with your colleagues, and make your  IT organization realize that it can start with XLA targets rather than XLA agreements. Plus, appreciate that it might never need to create the XLA agreements that could end up as “shelfware” similar to their earlier SLA agreements. 

Addressing the potential confusion between XLA targets and XLA agreements is an important starting point for your organization – with a need to ensure that everyone involved, with experience management initiatives, understands what XLA adoption will deliver.

Does your organization need XLA agreements or XLA targets?

First, it’s worth stating that XLA agreements and XLA targets are not mutually exclusive. Your organization can have both, with the targets part of the agreements. Importantly, XLA targets can also be used alone, with this perhaps in the short term before any XLA agreement creation.

Given the potential for XLA agreements to become shelfware, in addition to the required time and effort to create and agree on them, the real value from XLAs is likely to come from the targets rather than the agreements. Or, to be more precise, the real value comes from capturing and acting on experience data as soon as possible.

Which should come first... XLA agreements or XLA targets? Here @Joe_the_IT_Guy explains. #XLA #ServiceDesk #ITSM #EX Share on X

For many organizations, it, therefore, makes sense to start with the XLA targets first. Or at least the first iteration of XLA targets based on what your organization needs its IT capabilities to achieve. Importantly, it keeps the XLA introduction simple. If your organization currently focuses on SLA targets but rarely refers to the SLA agreement, it shouldn’t be worried about using XLA targets without first creating XLA agreement documents.

Benefitting from earlier XLA target use

Rather than getting bogged down in XLA agreement creation, your organization can benefit from adopting XLA targets sooner – because the benefits are delayed when the capture of experience data is postponed until XLA agreement documents have been created. Organizations can find it challenging to develop XLA agreement documents because of the lack of freely available XLA agreement examples. As a relatively new IT management discipline maturity, it’s unsurprising that there’s still little guidance available.

'The successful use of XLA targets to improve experiences, ops, services & outcomes might mean that there’s never a need for your organization to create those XLA agreement documents.' says @Joe_the_IT_Guy #XLA #ITSM Share on X

Sidelining XLA agreement creation for at least the short term allows your organization to focus on finding the right targets to help prove the internal worth of experience data and insights. It also helps to deal with the detractor “XLAs are too complicated” view that can slow down XLA adoption in organizations.

So start with XLA targets for quicker business impact

Hopefully, the previous sections have convinced you of the need to separate the two meanings of XLA and to focus on XLA targets in the short term. The emerging experience management market has seen organizations preferring to start with XLA targets, even those considered to have high experience management maturity (and there might be a link here). It’s a far easier way to “test the experience management waters” than getting bogged down in an XLA agreement creation process that delivers minimal value until the included XLA targets are used in anger (with experience data collected and acted upon).

'Your organization doesn’t need to delay the benefits of experience management data by creating XLA agreement documents.' - @Joe_the_IT_Guy #EX #XLA #SLA #ITSM #ServiceDesk Share on X

XLA targets alone can address IT organizations’ issues with traditional SLA targets. Importantly, your organization doesn’t need to delay the benefits of experience management data by creating XLA agreement documents. Instead, it can quickly start to see the most beneficial experience metrics and serious end-user issues, then focus its improvement efforts on what matters most to the end-users and business success. You never know; the successful use of XLA targets to improve experiences, operations, services, and outcomes might mean that there’s never a need for your organization to create those XLA agreement documents.

Are you using XLA targets? Let me know in the comments.