In the corporate world, formal Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) are a staple. These agreements, often implemented through platforms like ServiceNow or Jira, establish clear expectations regarding response and resolution times.

For instance, they might define how many hours a team has to acknowledge or complete a user’s request. These provide structure and clarity that businesses and prjects can depend on.

However, beyond these formal agreements, there exists a less defined yet equally important concept: informal Service Level Agreements.

These reflect the everyday communication expectations that arise in workplace interactions. Informal S.L.A.’s vary depending on the communication medium, the urgency of the matter, and the individuals involved; they also change with what level of delivery you are producing.

Over time, I’ve observed some general guidelines that seem to work well across different organizations. Let’s break these down.

Email Communication

For most email communications, there’s an unspoken expectation to respond within 24 hours during business days.

This standard applies to everything from straightforward requests to more complex tasks. If you’re unable to provide a complete response within that timeframe, perhaps due to a heavy workload or the complexity of the request, a brief reply acknowledging receipt and explaining the delay is a good practice. Indicate when the sender can expect a full response.

When it comes to emails marked as “important,” faster responses are typically expected—ideally within minutes. However, the urgency of such emails often depends on the sender’s behavior.

If the sender rarely flags emails as important and is known to use the label only when needed, their message likely requires immediate attention.
On the other hand, if you have someone who seems to regard all their emails as critical and frequently marks emails as important without clear justification, the impact of the label diminishes, potentially slowing communication and harming productivity.

Instant Messaging

Response times in instant messaging platforms depend heavily on the context and the group dynamics. In group chats, especially those used for operational issues like outages or security breaches, immediate responses are expected—even outside of regular working hours.
For personal or one-to-one communication, the standard is less rigid.

A response within an hour or during gaps between meetings is generally acceptable. That said, it’s important to address inefficiencies in how instant messaging is used. For example, some individuals treat instant messages as a repository for tasks, sending requests late on a Friday with the expectation that they’ll be addressed first thing Monday.

This practice can overwhelm recipients and disrupt workflow. Establishing and reinforcing appropriate boundaries for instant messaging is crucial to making sure that subject matter experts and other useful people don’t just become some sort of chat client receptionist unable to actually do any real work.

Levels of Delivery

Now that you have worked out the different informal levels of service and how fast you should respond, there are also different levels of what you are actually delivering

Technical Delivery

This is the foundational stage where the core system or infrastructure is operational. It’s akin to a newly constructed hospital that’s ready for use but hasn’t yet admitted any patients. While technically complete, it’s not yet delivering value.

Functional Delivery / Business Delivery

Functional delivery occurs when the system or service is actively used and creating value. Using the hospital analogy, this is when patients are being treated, and the facility is fulfilling its purpose.
In a business context, it’s when a product or service starts generating revenue or achieving its intended outcomes.

Political Delivery

Political delivery focuses on presenting progress to stakeholders. For instance, the hospital may appear ready to operate but hasn’t yet treated any patients.
These deliveries often arise in long-term projects where demonstrating visible progress is necessary to maintain stakeholder confidence. While political deliveries may not always align with the team’s priorities, they are sometimes essential for managing expectations and ensuring continued support.

Balancing it all

As I advance into more senior management roles, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of balancing these different types of deliveries. Political deliveries, in particular, often require short-term sacrifices for long-term gains.
Helping your team understand this dynamic and keeping them focused on the bigger picture is key to maintaining morale and ensuring success.

One significant development recently in the UK freelance world, is the decline of the outside IR35 contract. For decades, IR35 has loomed over the contracting and freelance world, dating back to my very first contract.

The conversation around IR35 has been a long standing tug of war, with court battles, various solutions, and attempts to circumvent it. However, this year, things really did seem to change.

The Inland Revenue shifted its focus. Instead of targeting contractors and freelancers directly, it turned its attention to the finance departments of major corporations.
This strategic change caused a ripple effect. Many clients, wary of the potential liability associated with contractors, simply stopped engaging them.

This purging of contractors aligned with the Inland Revenue’s stance that contracting should be a short-term solution. And, to some extent, it’s hard to argue with that perspective.

The problem, however, is with implementing that in a practical way

Large corporate projects often span multiple years and can grow and shrink according to issues along the way and require specialised expertise, that you would normally solve by hiring freelance contractors or consultants.

The new limitations make long-term, specialised projects harder to manage. However, these restrictions apply only to contractors, not vendors. This distinction creates a significant disparity in how companies operate; basically, big companies have it easier, and from the inside it seems like the Inland Revenue favours them.
The Vendor Transition

Our company, LDC Via, is a small business founded by experienced contractors over 15 years ago. Our goal has always been to collaborate and build something beyond what we could do as individuals, a consultancy focused on delivering specialist products and value.

Now we formed because we were a like group of people that wanted to work together rather than the desire to be a “vendor” but that is what we have in fact become; we’ve had to navigate the complex transition from contractor(s) to a genuine vendor.

This process involves intense paperwork and administrative hurdles, as large corporate clients are structured to deal with single person contractors or huge vendors but not much in between.

Last year, this issue came to a head. We received a mandate enforcing a time limit on the period contractors could work at a corporation. All the freelancers working outside major vendors faced the same challenge.

However, we had acted internally as a genuine vendor for our entire existence, and we only used contracts verses vendor statements of work as they were simpler and easier for the client; a contract can be agreed upon and signed in under 48 hours, whereas a statement of work can take up to 3 months.

So ultimately, the move for us from contracting for a client to becoming a full vendor was just a paperwork change rather than a change in work style, something a lot of freelancers dont have the luxury of doing,

but for those thinking of making the same change and have a group of trusted colleagues that they can form a genuine company with. Here are the key challenges of being a Vendor:

Slower Payments

Vendors often face significant payment delays. While contractors and agencies are usually paid on a regular schedule, vendors can wait months or even a year to receive payment. This creates cash flow nightmares, particularly for small vendors.

Administrative Overhead

Vendors deal with more complex invoicing processes, requiring back and forth negotiations with procurement and accounts payable. This extra layer of admin work often necessitates hiring dedicated staff just to manage paperwork.

Delivery Based Payment

Vendors operate under stricter, goal oriented deliverables. Even if all deliverables are met, proving fulfilment can be challenging due to internal inefficiencies within the client organisation.

Vendors sometimes need to demonstrate internal incompetence in a client just to secure payment, a frustrating and counterproductive system that does nothing to foster a good working relationship.

High Costs

The added paperwork and administrative burden directly contribute to higher vendor costs. This “make work” system is inefficient but unavoidable in large corporations.
Working “At Risk”

As statments of work take so long to setup and get agreed, clients often ask you to work “at risk,” which is another way of saying “can you start work without any formal contract or guarantee that you will be paid.” Obviously, the statment of work will be backdated.
so you should be paid for your work in the end, its still a nerve racking business each time. This risk side is one of the core differences between vendors and contractors.

Why the Shift?

The Inland Revenue’s preference to vendors rather than contractors makes sense when considering regular payments.

Contractors, with their predictable monthly invoices, resemble employees, making them easy targets for scrutiny. On the other hand, vendors, plagued by irregular payments and chaotic processes, appear less like employees and more like separate entities, albeit at the cost of efficiency.

Conclusion

For contractors considering the leap to vendor status, it’s a challenging path. While we’ve successfully operated as a vendor for over a decade, the transition comes with significant paperwork, slower payments, and more admin.

The higher costs associated with vendors stem directly from these inefficiencies.

Ultimately, improving internal processes could benefit everyone involved. Until then, the distinction between contractors and vendors will continue to shape the way projects are managed in large corporations as well as how they are perceived by the Inland Revenue.

A “TEEN tantrum” is a way to describe the typical methods some managers and project managers employ when trying to get their way. I came across this term recently, and after having it explained to me, I thought it fit quite well, so I’m sharing it here. Credit goes to the original creator, who prefers to remain anonymous.

The acronym breaks down as follows:

“T” is for Time:

This is about urgency. Common demands include:

“When can I have this?!”
“I want this immediately!”
“How long will it take to finish this?!”

These types of questions are often the starting point for expressing dissatisfaction.

“E” is for Exasperation:

Exasperation usually manifests as frustration with perceived delays. For example:

“Why is this taking so long?!”
“This should only take a few moments!”
“Who is responsible for this?!”

Often, the person exhibiting this behavior lacks expertise in the subject, so they’re unaware of the complexities involved in delivering the work.

“E” is for Escalation:

This stage involves threatening to escalate the issue:

“This needs Escalating!”
“I want this done now!”
“I’ll get your boss involved.”
“Give me the name of the person in charge.”

“N” is for Name Dropping:

The final stage includes leveraging authority or connections:
“I know ‘Boss X’ ”
” ‘Boss X’ will hear about this!”

This behaviour resembles what some describe as the “Karen” archetype in corporate culture, though it is, of course, gender neutral.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

Explanation:

Meetings serve a few valuable functions: they help organize efforts, prepare people for challenges, and identify problems. However, meetings themselves don’t accomplish tasks and at the end of nearly all meetings, no tangible work has been done.

To be effective, meetings must either add to the team’s understanding of their task and deliverables or gather new, actionable information.
If they fail to do this, they are largely pointless.

The main exception is well executed agile meetings, particularly short, focused morning stand-ups. These can be useful if done right:

• Keep them short.
• Keep them honest.
• Avoid using them as a reporting mechanism for managers. They’re not for compiling data into spreadsheets or lists. Stand-ups exist to help team members stay on track and understand what’s going on.

For managers, here’s an easy rule of thumb to determine if you have the right number of meetings:

If you were off sick, how long would it take for something important to go wrong?

If it’s a week, weekly meetings may be appropriate.

If your absence wouldn’t cause issues, you might not need that meeting at all.

Finally, consider this: do your team members get more done when you’re on holiday? If so, it might be time to rethink how and why you’re holding meetings.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

Key Definitions

Determination:

Optimism:

Cheerfulness:

The Cynical Optimist

The Cheerful Optimist

Audience Matters

Technical Teams, such as Information Technology or Business Analysts:

• Acknowledge the challenges.
• Communicate that success is possible with effort.
• Avoid overly cheerful reassurances that might come across as dismissive of their workload. Example: “Yes, this will be a grind, and it’s going to be tough. But with persistence, we’ll get there.”

Non-Technical Stakeholders such as Customers or Senior Managers:

• Inspire confidence in your ability to deliver.
• Reassure them that challenges are under control.
• Create a sense of enthusiasm about the project’s future. Example: “We’re making great progress, and while there are challenges, I’m confident we’ll deliver excellent results.”

• Be honest and pragmatic when dealing with teams that value transparency and realism.
• Be cheerful and reassuring when dealing with stakeholders who need confidence and enthusiasm to stay engaged.
• It’s all about balance: conveying optimism without dismissing reality and bringing energy without losing credibility.