SLO Anti-Patterns: The Five Traps That Kill Programs
Most SLO programs that fail die from the same five reasons. The fixes are mechanical.
Trap 1: aspirational targets
Setting target above achievable: 5 nines on a system that does 3.
Always missed; team learns to ignore.
Fix: target slightly above measured baseline; raise as capacity grows.
Trap 2: no consequences
- No consequence to missing: feature work continues.
- SLO becomes decoration; nobody cares.
- Fix: defined consequences; documented; enforced.
Trap 3: gaming
Excluding causes you control (‘not our fault’).
Cooking the budget toward zero risk.
Fix: include all impact; users do not care about your blame model.
Trap 4: scope creep
Adding SLOs for everything; 50 per team.
Maintenance burden exceeds value.
Fix: 3-5 SLOs per service max; quarterly review.
Antipatterns
- Trap 5: dashboard fatigue. Engineers stop looking; recovery requires redesign.
What to do this week
Three moves. (1) Apply the pattern to your most-impactful service. (2) Measure adherence for 30 days. (3) Rewrite the policy or the SLO if the gap is durable.