Ban the SLA (Just for the first six months) By Vicky Gillan
The first few days and weeks of a new agency/
❶ It’s just too soon
client relationship are crucial. There’s so much to learn, set up and kick off, with oodles of passion, excitement, and expectation about what can be delivered, and by when. Both parties are stepping into the unknown, and whilst having a Service Level Agreement in place from the word ‘go’ can feel like a safety net to ensure the right progress, our advice is don’t.
We’ll kick off with the biggest issue: the reality is that in the initial weeks and months of a new working relationship, everyone is feeling their way. Both the agency and the client will be brimming with assumptions, expectations and preconceptions about how things should work.
There’s just no way you’ll have enough insight into the relationship to put together an effective SLA. At least not to start with. And there’s certainly not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. There are too many variables to simply cobble together an SLA and assume it will solve all the inevitable challenges that need to be addressed (and oh boy, are there lots of those) for a few key reasons: 38
Facilitating success in these early stages is about reconciling these three things with the reality of what will work best. There’ll be some idea of what’s expected from the pitch process, but now it’s time to get specific about language, communication, process and working cultures to pin down and agree exactly how things will work best on a personal and practical level. These things take time, and whilst much can be pre-discussed and a working hypothesis kicked off, some actual rubber (and real work/
