OLA (Operational Level Agreement)

The OLA is the SLA's internal sibling: the commitments teams inside one organisation make to each other so the promises made externally can actually be kept. No executive signs an OLA, but every executive who signs an SLA should know whether the OLAs beneath it exist.

What It Is

An Operational Level Agreement is an internal agreement between teams within the same organisation — application support, network operations, database administration, the service desk — defining what each contributes to meeting a customer-facing SLA. If the SLA promises incident resolution in four hours, the OLAs underneath specify what the network team commits to the application team, what the DBA team commits, and how hand-offs and escalation work. OLAs carry the same anatomy as SLAs — targets, response times, escalation paths — but enforcement is managerial rather than contractual.

Why It Matters to You

The OLA explains the most frustrating pattern in technology operations: SLAs that keep failing with no party visibly accountable. The external promise was signed, but no internal commitments bind the teams whose combined work delivers it — each link performs to its own rhythm and the chain misses. When you commission a critical internal service (or run one), asking 'what OLAs support this SLA?' is the difference between managing a promise and managing its delivery mechanics. In outsourcing arrangements the equivalent concept appears as underpinning contracts — the provider's own supplier commitments beneath their promise to you.

When You'll Meet It

In IT service management reviews, internal service catalogues, and any investigation of chronically missed SLAs. If root-cause analysis keeps ending at 'between teams', the missing document is almost always this one.