The Service Governance Plan (SGP) is an important document that all Service Engagements must produce. It defines all the procedures and resources necessary for the fulfillment of Service Engagement according to the Client’s stated requirements. Its existence and approval represents a formal agreement and commitment between the service team and the sponsors.

The service Governance Plan is an important document, although usually it is not a legally binding contract; but it does represent a formal agreement and commitment between the Services Engagement and the Client. As such, the Engagement Manager has a responsibility to treat this agreement seriously and make every effort to meet the commitment it represents.

In developing Service Governance Plan, the Service Engagement Initiation Lead must not inadvertently or otherwise increase the scope of Capgemini’s responsibilities or commitments against those stated within the approved Contract, whether this is from a contractual perspective or miss-setting of client expectations. Put simply, the Service Governance Plan must focus on "how we're doing it" not "what we're doing". For example, the Service Governance Plan may include summary details of the scope that is being delivered and make reference to detailed scope documents for completeness of understanding, but the Service Governance Plan should not be used to hold detailed scope (or detailed "what") statements.

Once drafted, the Service Governance Plan must be reviewed by the Delivery Manager and Quality Manager to verify:

• Service has been documented accurately
• Scope of Capgemini’s commitments to the Client hasn’t inadvertently increased (or decreased)
• Collaboration with the Client is in line with the contract.

If Client review is required (see comment below about level of Client review and sign off), the Service Engagement Initiation Lead must arrange for the Client to review the Service Governance Plan. This is to verify the execution of services as stated, but more important to validate the roles and responsibilities for Client representatives, the reporting mechanisms and the acceptance process/criteria for deliverables and services. Any changes required to the Service Governance Plan at this stage must include a further round of reviews within Capgemini to confirm agreement internally.

Once the review of Service Governance Plan has concluded, the Delivery Manager (on behalf of Capgemini) must sign-off the Service Governance Plan to indicate formal agreement and acceptance of the document.

The Service Engagement Initiation Lead must engage with the Technology And Infrastructure Lead from the start of the Implementation Phase to communicate the identified facilities, equipments, infrastructure and other components required to manage and deliver the service. This would include office space, network connectivity, servers, service management tools, communication tools, softwares, etc. In addition, the client may have specific requirements that the Service Engagement will need to accommodate. All these requirements must be provided to the Technical and Infrastructure Lead in a timely fashion for establishing the management environment.

The Service Engagement Initiation Lead must also collaborate with other streams in order to receive inputs for other sections of the Service Governance Plan.

Please note: The level of Client sign off and review can vary. In some cases, the Service Governance Plan is not a contracted deliverable and therefore does not require any kind of Client review or sign-off. In other cases, Client review and sign off may be limited to specific sections of the document only. The contract should always be checked to verify the level of Client review and sign off required for the Service Governance Plan.