Practise Exam 5 Flashcards
What is the definition of service management?
- A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value to customers
- The means by which an organization is directed and controlled
- A method for visualizing work, identifying potential blockages and resource conflicts, and managing work in progress.
- A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks.
1 - A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value to customers
Service management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value to customers in the form of services.
Identify the missing word(s) in the following sentence.
A user is a person who uses [?].
- Products
- Services
- Functionality
- Outputs
2 - Services
A user is a person who uses services.
What is the definition of a change?
- The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services.
- An unplanned interuption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service
- A cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents.
- An issue that has been analyzed but has not been resolved
1 - The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services.
A change is the addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services.
What is defined as a cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents?
- Changes
- Known Errors
- Problem
- Events
3 - Problem
A problem is a cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents.
What is the purpose of the ‘IT asset management’ practice?
- Ensuring that services achieve agreed and expected performance levels, satisfying current and future demand in a cost-effective way.
- Planning and managing the full lifecycle of all IT-assets
- Ensuring that services deliver agreed levels of availability or that change can be assessed.
- Supporting the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.
2 - Planning and managing the full lifecycle of all IT-assets
IT asset management is the practice of planning and managing the full lifecycle of all IT assets.
What is the purpose of the ‘continual improvement’ practice?
- Supporting the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.
- Minimizing the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operations as quickly as possible
- Aligining an organizations practises and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of all elements involved in the effective management of products and services.
- Ensuring that risks are properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed and managing a change schedule in order to maximize the number of successful IT changes.
3 - Aligining an organizations practises and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of all elements involved in the effective management of products and services.
Continual improvement is the practice of aligning an organization’s practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of all elements involved in the effective management of products and services.
What is defined as the practice of protecting an organization by understanding and managing risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information?
- Information security managment
- Availability management
- Service continuity management
- Change enablement
1 - Information security managment
Information security management is the practice of protecting an organization by understanding and managing risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.
What is defined as the practice of ensuring that an organization’s suppliers and their performance levels are managed appropriately to support the provision of seamless quality products and services?
- Supplier management
- Service level management
- Capacity and performance management
- Monitoring and event management
1 - Supplier management
Supplier management is the practice of ensuring that an organization’s suppliers and their performance levels are managed appropriately to support the provision of seamless quality products and services.
Identify the missing word in the following sentence.
[?] management is the practice of reducing the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents, and managing workarounds and known errors.
- Availability
- Event
- Incident
- Problem
4 - Problem
Problem management is the practice of reducing the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents, and managing workarounds and known errors.
Dion Training has outsourced the development of a mobile application to support their students’ learning while on the go. Instead of paying a fixed-fee for the development though, Dion Training has negotiated with the developers to instead pay them a royalty fee for each student who logs into the service through their smartphone app. To control costs, Dion Training has decided to only allow students on their higher membership levels to be given access to the application. Which of the following terms best describes the activities performed by Dion Training in this example?
- Service offering
- Service relationship management
- Service provision
- Service Consumption
4 - Service Consumption
Service consumption refers to the activities performed by an organization to consume services, which includes the management of the consumer’s resources needed to use the service, service use actions performed by users, and may include the receiving (acquiring) of goods.
What term best describes a service that is ‘fit for purpose’?
- Warranty
- Output
- Utility
- Outcomes
3 - Utility
Utility is defined as the functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need. When a service has utility, it is referred to as ‘fit for purpose’.
Fill in the blank.
A(n) [?] is a result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs.
- Utility
- Warranty
- Value
- Outcome
4 - Outcome
An outcome is “a result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs”. The definition of a service describes how the value of a service enables value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve.
Fill in the blank.
A guiding principle is defined as a(n) [?] that can guide an organization in all circumstances and will guide organizations when adopting service management.
- Mandatory actions
- Prescriptive requirements
- Governance
- Recommendations
4 - Recommendations
A guiding principle is defined as a recommendation that can guide an organization in all circumstances and will guide organizations when adopting service management. They are not described as prescriptive or mandatory.
Fill in the blank. According to the guiding principles, “Everything that the organization does needs to map, directly or indirectly, to [?] for the stakeholders.
- Value
- Outcomes
- Outputs
- Utility
1 - Value
According to the guiding principle of ‘focus on value’, “Everything that the organization does needs to map, directly or indirectly, to value for the stakeholders.
Which guiding principle says that the current state should be investigated and observed directly to make sure it is fully understood before you attempt to create a brand new service or process?
- Optimize and automate
- Progress iteratively with feedback
- Start where you are
- Focus on value
3 - Start where you are
The ‘start where you are’ guiding principle says that the current state should be investigated and observed directly to make sure it is fully understood before you attempt to create a brand new service or process. There is usually something in the existing service or process that can be reused, saving you time, effort, and resources.
Which guiding principle recognizes the complexity of a system and seeks to understand the relationships between the various components that make up a service?
- Keep it simple and practical
- Think and work holistically
- Optimize and automate
- Collaborate and promote visibility
2 - Think and work holistically
The guiding principle ‘think and work holistically’ recognizes the complexity of a system and seeks to understand the relationships between the various components that make up a service. This is because services are delivered to internal and external service consumers through the coordination and integration of the four dimensions of service management and, therefore, requires you to think about a service from end-to-end by understanding how an organization can work together in an integrated way to achieve the desired objectives.
Which guiding principle is focused on using the minimum number of steps to accomplish an objective?
- Keep it simple and practical
- Progress iteratively with feedback
- Optimize and automate
- Collaborate and promote visibility
1 - Keep it simple and practical
When analyzing a practice, process, service, metric or other improvement targets, always ask whether it contributes to value creation. To keep things simple, you should always use the least amount of steps necessary to perform an action. If value is not being created, then eliminate the unnecessary steps to simplify the process.
Your company currently uses a paper-based process for allocating funding for authorized business travel. This process requires the traveler to fill out a form and get 6 different signatures and approval prior to turning in the form to accounting for funding of the travel. This entire process is currently done manually, meaning, an employee is actually walking around to the various managers for their physical signature on a piece of paper. You have decided to automate this process. Based on the principle of ‘optimize and automate’, how should you approach the automation of this existing process?
- Identify all of the steps in the process and create an automated workflow that will route the form electronically to the authorized signatories
- Identify all of the steps in the process and eliminate any unnecessary steps in the process
- Identify all the steps in the process, eliminate any unnecessary steps, and then automate the remaining steps in the process.
- Create a new process first and then automate
3 - Identify all the steps in the process, eliminate any unnecessary steps, and then automate the remaining steps in the process.
The guiding principle of ‘optimize and automate’ states that you should first identify all the steps in a process first. Then, you should simplify or optimize the process. Finally, once you have an optimized process, you should automate the process.
Which dimension of service management should be considered when deciding whether or not moving the organization’s web server from an on-premise solution to the cloud is a good decision in terms of compliance and security?
- Organizations and people
- Value streams and processes
- Information and technology
- Partners and suppliers
3 - Information and technology
The ‘information and technology’ dimension focuses on the information and knowledge necessary for the management of services, as well as the technologies required. Since this is an information security and compliance consideration, this would fall under the ‘information and technology’ dimension.
Dion Training Solutions is an Authorized Training Organization for Axelos. Which service management dimension would be focused on the relationship between Dion Training Solutions and Axelos in regards to the company’s delivery of ITIL 4 Foundation training to students?
- Organizations and people
- Information and technology
- Partners and suppliers
- Value Streams and processes
3 - Partners and suppliers
The ‘partners and suppliers’ dimension focuses on the organization’s relationships with other organizations that are involved in the design, development, deployment, delivery, support, and/or continual improvement of services. This also incorporates contracts and other agreements between the organization and its partners or suppliers.
What is the end result of the service value system?
- Activities
- Value
- Practices
- Demand
2 - Value
The end result of the service value system is value. The service value system describes how all the components and activities work together to enable value creation.
Which of the following is NOT an activity within the service value chain?
- Engage
- Guiding principle
- Delivery and Support
- Obtain/Build
2 - Guiding Principle
Guiding principles are not an activity in the service value chain. The six activities within the service value chain are plan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain/build, and deliver and support.
Which value chain activity ensures that service components are available when and where they are needed and meet agreed specifications?
- Improve
- Deliver and support
- Obtain / Build
- Design and Transition
3 - Obtain/Build
The ‘obtain/build’ value chain activity ensures that service components are available when and where they are needed and meet agreed specifications.
Your company is currently spending $1.2 million per year on energy to run its data center. The new CEO of the company wants the organization to become more environmentally friendly and reduce its energy consumption from commercial power sources such as coal and nuclear energy. To support this initiative, the IT Director has created a goal of reducing the power consumption in the data center to less than $1 million next year. In which step of the continual service model would the IT Director create this goal?
- What is the vision?
- How do we get there?
- Where do we want to be?
- Where are we now?
3 - Where do we want to be?
The ‘where do we want to be’ step of the continual improvement model is focused on defining the goal for the organization based on the vision and putting into terms what can be measured and quantified (such as Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators). Since the CEO sets the vision in the ‘what is the vision’ step, the IT Director would then determine the current amount of energy used in the ‘where are we now’ step, and set a goal in the ‘where do we want to be’ step.
Your company is undergoing an improvement initiative to reduce the number of physical servers in the data center by 50%. You are working as part of the deployment team trying to achieve this goal. You are currently migrating physical servers into virtualized systems and removing the physical servers from the data center. Which step of the continual improvement model are you working on?
- Take action
- Where are we now
- How do we get there
- Where do we want to be
1 - Take action
The ‘take action’ step of the continual improvement model is focused on performing the actual work involved in order to reach the goals set forth in the ‘where do we want to be’ step.
Your company’s web server is currently experiencing a denial of service attack which is preventing external users from accessing the company’s e-commerce store. In order to stop the attack, the information security team needs to add an IP block to the firewall’s access control list. Normally, any changes to the firewall’s access control list must be approved through change management first. Which type of change should be initiated by the information security team?
- Standard
- Normal
- Emergency
- Critical
3 - Emergency
An emergency change is change that must be implemented as soon as possible to resolve an incident or security issue. (Note: Critical is not a type of change in ITIL 4.)
What is a standard change?
- A change that is assessed, authorized, and scheduled as part of “continual improvement”
- A change that is routine in nature, is fully documented, and the risks are well understood.
- A change that needs to be assessed, authorized, and scheduled by a change authority
- A change that dosent need risk assessment because it is required to resolve an incident
2 - A change that is routine in nature, is fully documented, and the risks are well understood.
Standard changes are low-risk, pre-authorized changes that are well-understood and fully-documented. When the procedure for a standard change is created or modified, there should be a full risk assessment and authorization as for any other change. This risk assessment does not need to be repeated each time the standard change is implemented, only if there is a modification to the way it is carried out.
You are part of a team configuring a brand new email server. You want to get permission to install the server on the corporate network to continue your configuration and testing. Which type of change should you initiate?
- Standard
- Normal
- Emergency
- Routine
2 - Normal
You should initiate a normal change. Normal changes are changes which need to be scheduled, assessed, and authorized following a standard process. These changes are not considered routine (like a standard change). They are also not considered urgent and don’t need to be implemented as soon as possible to recover from an incident (like an emergency change). There is no such thing as a routine change in ITIL 4.
What should NOT be included in incident management?
- A formal process for logging and managing incidents
- Detailed procedures on how to diagnose, investigate, and resolve incidents.
- Techniques for making investigation and diagnosis more efficient
- Scripts for the collection of information during initial contact with a user.
2 - Detailed procedures on how to diagnose, investigate, and resolve incidents.
Incident management should not have detailed procedures on how to diagnose, investigate, and resolve incidents. Instead, procedures should focus on the initial triage of the incident and resolution of simple incidents. Complex or complicated incidents require a knowledgeable professional with expertise to diagnose and resolve.
Which practice seeks to minimize the negative impact of unplanned outages by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible?
- Problem Management
- Service Level Management
- Change Management
- Incident Management
4 - Incident Management
Incident management seeks to minimize the negative impact of an incident by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible. Incidents are an unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service.
Each time users attempt to log on to the domain using their username and password, they receive an error that ‘the authentication server is not responding’. This is happening to multiple users across the network. How would you categorize this issue?
- Incident
- Workaround
- Problem
- Event
3 - Problem
A problem is a cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents. This is occuring multiple times and to different users across the network. The common issue appears to be the authentication server, so it might be the problem.
Your printer is currently out of toner and will not print. You ask your co-worker for help, but he says the toner is on order and won’t arrive for a few days. He walks over to the printer, takes out the toner cartridge, shakes it back and forth a few times, and places it back into the printer. Suddenly, the printer begins to print again. Apparently, shaking the toner cartridge moved some of the remaining toner around and will allow a few more sheets to be printed while you are waiting for a new cartridge. What would you classify this as?
- Incident
- Workaround
- Problem
- Event
2 - Workaround
A workaround is a solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which a full resolution is not yet available. Some workarounds reduce the likelihood of incidents. This workaround will only work a few times, but hopefully, this will allow you to print what you need until the new toner arrives.
How does ‘service request management’ contribute to ‘design and transition’ activity?
- By collecting user-specific request requirements
- By acquiring pre-approved service components
- It Analyzes data to identify opportunities to provide new service request options
- By initiating standard changes to fulfill service requests
4 - By initiating standard changes to fulfill service requests
This is the ‘design and transition’ activity. Standard changes to services can be initiated and fulfilled as service requests.
What is an example of an action a service request management employee would undertake as part of the ‘improve’ activity?
- Provide trend, quality, and feedback information about requests
- Initiate and fulfill standard changes
- Communicate with consumers to understand their requirements
- Fulfill the consumers service requests through acquisition of service components
1 - Provide trend, quality, and feedback information about requests
This is the ‘improve’ activity. Improve includes the analysis of data to identify opportunities to provide new service request options. It also contributes to improvement by providing trend, quality, and feedback information about fulfillment of requests.
What does a centralized service desk require?
- Local service desk analysts
- Complex automation
- 24x7 support
- Remote access tools
4 - Remote Access Tools
A centralized service desk requires supporting technologies like workflow systems for routing and escalation, workforce management and resource planning systems, a centralized knowledge base, intelligent telephony systems, automatic call distribution, and remote access tools. Automation is wonderful and can provide efficiencies, but it is not required. Also, 24x7 support may not be a business requirement for some organizations. But, if you have a centralized service desk, you will need good remote access tools to be able to support users that are not located at your same location.
Your company has three service desk locations around the globe to support 24x7 operations. These locations are in England, the United States, and India. Each of these service desks only operates on an 8 am to 5 pm schedule in their local time. When a user calls the service desk, their call is routed to whichever service desk is operating at that time. For example, if it is 1 am in New York City and a user calls the service desk, they are routed to the India service desk because it would only be 11 am in India. What type of service desk model is your company using?
- Virtual
- Centralized
- Follow-the-sun
- Local
3 - Follow-the-sun
A follow-the-sun service desk model relies upon multiple service desks located in geographically-dispersed regions of the world. When a caller reaches the service desk, they are routed to the service desk that is operated at that given time frame. This is called follow-the-sun because it allows service desk analysts to work during their local day time hours, regardless of the time zone of their users. By using three service desks spread across different time zones, a company can provide 24x7 operations to anywhere in the world, while their workforce only works from 8 am to 5 pm daily.
What should be included in every service level agreement?
- Partners contractual obligations
- Clearly defined service outcomes
- Suppliers contractual obligations
- Detailed metrics to capture availability of the system
2 - Clearly defined service outcomes
They should relate to defined outcomes and not simply operational metrics. This can be achieved with balanced ‘bundles’ of metrics.
How does ‘service level management’ contribute to the ‘obtain/build’ value chain activity?
- Provides objectives for components and service performance for products and services
- Collects feedback during interactions and communicates service performance objectives to the operations and support teams
- Provides feedback from interactions with customers into new or changed services.
- Provides information about the actual service performance and trends
1 - Provides objectives for components and service performance for products and services
The ‘obtain/build’ activity in the service level management practice provides objectives for component and service performance for products and services
What is an example of an action a service request management employee would undertake as part of the ‘engage’ activity?
- Provide trend, quality, and feedback information about requests
- Initiate and fulfill standard changes
- Communicate with consumers to understand their requirements
- Fulfill the consumers service requests through acquisition of service components
3 - Communicate with consumers to understand their requirements
This is the ‘engage’ activity. Engage includes regular communication to collect under-specific requirements, set expectations, and to provide status updates.
How should an organization adopt ‘continual improvement’ methods?
- Use a new method for each improvement that the organization handles
- Select a few key methods to suit the types of improvement that the organization handles
- Build the capability to use as many improvement methods as possible
- Select a single method for all improvements that the organization handles
2 - Select a few key methods to suit the types of improvement that the organization handles
There are many methods that can be used for improvement initiatives and too many should not be used. It is a good idea to select a few key methods that are appropriate to the types of improvements the organization typically handles and to cultivate those methods.
