Appendix
Answers to Review Questions

Chapter 1: Introduction to Operational Support and Analysis

  1. D. Testing and rolling out the service are part of the service transition stage, and the decision to retire the service is strategic.
  2. D. Design coordination takes place solely within the service design lifecycle stage, whereas the other processes have elements of operational activity.
  3. C. This includes the correct list of functions in service operation.
  4. B. Defining the infrastructure requirements will be part of service design.
  5. B. Option B correctly matches the activities and functions.
  6. C. The problem management process is responsible for the prevention of incidents.
  7. B. Design coordination is a process of service design, and change management is a process of service transition.
  8. D. Service owner is not a role specific to processes; it applies to the overall service.
  9. A. Facilities management and operations control are the two elements of operations management, and process roles are applicable to processes, not to an overall service.
  10. C. The process practitioner is responsible for carrying out the work instructions for the process. Delivery of service is the responsibility of the service owner, the process owner is responsible for process policies, and the process manager will manage the resources for the process.

Chapter 2: Incident and Problem Management

  1. B. Option B is the definition of an incident given in the ITIL framework. Option A refers to an event, and Option C is a diagnosed problem.
  2. C. The incident should not be closed until the user confirms that the service has been restored.
  3. B. Option B does not restore the service to the agreed level or provide a workaround; the other options do this.
  4. C. Option C is the definition of normal service operation given in the ITIL framework. Normal service operation is what the customer should expect because both sides have agreed on it in the SLA.
  5. C. These are called incident models. A model is a repeatable way of dealing with a particular item, in this case a particular type of incident. It defines steps to be taken to resolve the incident along with timescales and escalation points. This speeds up logging and improves consistency.
  6. D. All incidents should be logged to ensure that a true picture of the customer experience is achieved; this also allows the cumulative impact of minor incidents to be evaluated. It provides evidence as to when these incidents occur, which may be useful in diagnosing the underlying cause. Option B is incorrect because not all incidents will come from the user; they could come from event logs, suppliers, technical staff, and so on.
  7. B. Priority within ITIL terms is always based on impact (effect on the business) and urgency (how quickly the business needs resolution).
  8. B. Hierarchic escalation involves going up the chain of command to inform or gain additional resources. Functional escalation is going across increasing technical skill levels to speed up resolution.
  9. C. A problem takes an unknown cause from one or more incidents, diagnoses the cause, and determines a permanent solution, where possible, thus turning an unknown into a known.
  10. D. These are all potential outputs of problem management. Known errors and the associated workarounds are documented and passed to the service desk so that new incident occurrences can be resolved. An RFC may need to be raised to implement a permanent resolution.

Chapter 3: Event Management, Request Fulfillment, and Access Management

  1. D. Situation 2 would not be helped by using events. Situation 1 would detect an alert that a time threshold or a priority condition existed and would carry out the escalation defined. Situation 3 would similarly respond to a particular event such as an alarm and would automatically notify the police station. Situation 4 could use the events signifying the successful backup of each file to automate the backup of the next file.
  2. C. 1, 2, and 4 are all examples of where event management can be used. Heat and moisture content can be monitored through event management, and actions can be taken if they breach acceptable parameters. Licenses can be controlled by monitoring who is signing onto applications and raising an alert if the maximum legal number is breached. Staff rosters do not have changing conditions that could be monitored by the use of events.
  3. C. The two types of event monitoring described in the chapter are passive and active. Passive monitoring waits for an error message to be detected, and active monitoring checks periodically on the “health” of the CI. The other two are not recognized by ITIL as event monitoring types.
  4. D. Only common, low-risk requests with a documented fulfillment procedure should be implemented using the request fulfillment process. Other changes require risk assessment through the change advisory board.
  5. A. Service desk staff fulfill many requests, with second-line staff carrying out installations, moves, and so on. Requests do not fall under the responsibilities of the SLM or BRM.
  6. A. Requests do not need CAB approval. If a change is required to fulfill the request, it should usually be preauthorized because the level of risk is low and the fulfillment process known and defined. The usual financial controls still apply, so part of fulfillment may be obtaining the budget holder’s agreement to the expenditure. Technical authorization may be required, as mentioned in the chapter.
  7. B. Option A is incorrect because security management does not prevent nonauthorized users from gaining access. Option C is incorrect because security management is responsible for setting security policies. Option D is incorrect because access management carries out the wishes of whoever is responsible for authorizing access (usually a business manager); it does not make the decision.
  8. D. All of the statements except number 3 are correct. Organizations often have a legal requirement to protect data, and failure to do so may damage their reputation and lead to less business. The data belongs to the business, and effective access management is required to ensure that access is based on business reasons, not what IT thinks. Access management does not necessarily reduce costs.
  9. C. The HR department manages changes to users’ names; this is not an access management challenge.
  10. A. Access management will remove or restrict access for staff on long-term leave because there is no valid reason for them to be accessing data. Any attempt to do so would raise suspicions. Access rights for those who have left the organization should be removed. It is poor practice to keep their access information available for the remaining staff to use; it should be adjusted if required to ensure a proper audit trail.

Chapter 4: The Service Desk

  1. C. The problem management process is responsible for the prevention of incidents, including recurrent. The service desk does not undertake problem management, it provides a first point of contact, resolves as many incidents as possible during the first contact, and updates users regarding the progress of incidents that have been assigned to second-line support teams.
  2. B. Design coordination is a process of service design, and change management is a process of service transition. Neither of these are carried out by the service desk.
  3. D. Detailed application knowledge is required for the application management function, not for the service desk. It is sufficient for service desk staff to have enough technical ability and understanding of the infrastructure and applications, to be able to recognize known errors and apply workarounds, or to escalate the incident to the correct support team. A knowledge of the business is required to understand business impact when prioritizing incidents.
  4. B. Matrix is not recognized as a service desk structure in the ITIL framework.
  5. B. Incident diagnostic scripts are used by the service desk analysts to help in the resolution of incidents at first-line. The known error database will provide workarounds to allow the service desk to restore service. The CMS will provide information regarding the CI experiencing the issue, and show its relationships with other CIs, as faults with other CIs may cause the particular CI to fail (for example, a faulty router may cause a printer to fail to print). Finally, access to the change schedule will highlight if the faulty CI has recently undergone a recent change that may have caused the fault.
  6. D. The percentage of incidents closed without escalation to another team will show the first-line resolution rate for the service desk; resolution at the service desk provides the fastest and cheapest solution, and minimizes the impact to the business. The percentage of incidents correctly categorized at logging shows how well the service desk staff understand the issue; incorrect categorization may cause the incident to be escalated to the wrong support team, wasting time and prolonging the impact to the business. Customer satisfaction survey scores will show whether the service being provided meets the business requirement. The percentage of incidents that are judged to be caused by hardware is out of the control of the service desk and does not reflect the level of service provided.
  7. B. The service desk resolves simple incidents; this means that these are not escalated to technical staff. The service desk does not document service level requirements or authorize RFCs. Although the service desk staff may help to update the CMS, and thus improve its accuracy, this is an indirect benefit as the CMS is the direct responsibility of service asset and configuration management.
  8. A. All incidents must be logged, whether by the super user or the service desk; if faults are resolved without being logged, problem management will not be aware of them, so there will be no root cause analysis and permanent resolution to prevent recurrence. Also, if second-line support teams work on incidents without the incident being logged, there will be incomplete management information regarding their workload and productivity. These incidents may also be treated with a higher priority than is warranted.
  9. B. Option B describes a virtual service desk structure. Option A describes a local service desk, Option C describes a follow-the-sun structure, and Option D does not describe any of the structures described in the ITIL guidance.
  10. B. The senior management of the organization determines what service will be provided and remains accountable for the level of service provided, even if they have employed an outsourcer to deliver it. The outsourcer is responsible for ensuring that the level of service provided matches or exceeds what was agreed in the contract.

Chapter 5: Technical Management, Application Management, and IT Operations Management

  1. B. Defining the infrastructure requirements will be part of service design.
  2. B. Option B correctly matches the activities and functions.
  3. D. Facilities management and operations control are the two elements of operations management.
  4. A. Technical management deals with the technical aspects of new or changed services. Option B is carried out by IT operations management, Option C by applications management, and Option D by the service desk.
  5. C. All of these are objectives of application management.
  6. D. Technical management refers to technical expertise and management of the infrastructure.
  7. A. Maintaining status quo of day-to-day operational activity is the objective of IT operations; planning new deployment of applications is the role of application management.
  8. D. Application management will take overall responsibility for all application-related issues.
  9. C. Technical management includes specialist technical architects, designers, maintenance, and support staff.
  10. B. This is a primary objective for IT operations management. Although other functions may be involved in routine tasks, this is not their primary objective.

Chapter 6: Technology and Implementation Considerations for Operational Support and Analysis

  1. B. Tools enable processes, not replace them, and although tools are used to support the processes, they should not define them.
  2. A. Statement 2 is incorrect; a tool does not need to have a service knowledge management system to be a service management tool. However, having details of all CIs and being able to link incidents, problems, requests, and so on is incredibly useful.
  3. B. The first step in selecting a toolset should be requirements gathering; if the requirements are not met, the tool may not function sufficiently to support the needs of the processes and teams.
  4. C. All of the options are part of the generic requirements for a service management tool.
  5. A. The Must, Should, Could, Would (MoSCoW) technique is used to categorize requirements in the selection of a tool. For example, the tool must have the ability to link incident records to problem records.
  6. D. The ability to authorize change requests is unlikely to be part of a self-service portal, but all of the rest are potentially standard capabilities.
  7. D. Reporting is essential in service management. A good tool will have a selection of generic reports but should also provide the functionality to support tailored report requirements to support organizational needs.
  8. A. Management should provide support and guidance throughout service management, and commitment is apparent if they provide the budget to enable training, obtain tools, and so on.
  9. B. Adopting project management does not mean that service operation does not have to fund the change. All other answers are benefits of using project management.
  10. B. Time limited is not a valid type of license. All the other terms are descriptions of possible licensing options.

Chapter 7: Introduction to Planning, Protection, and Optimization

  1. D. The 4 Ps of service design are the four aspects of service design that ensure a robust design that meets the requirement. The first aspect is people—calculating the number of people required to support the new service and ensuring that they have the necessary skill set to do so effectively. The second aspect to be considered is process—the service design processes and any additional processes, such as authorization or procurement processes. The third aspect is partners—ensuring that the best suppliers are chosen, since they provide components of the service. The final aspect is the products—the services being designed and the technology and tools to support the service later.
  2. B. A design that is balanced has given the appropriate weight to resources, time, and functionality. This means that if, for example, there is a requirement for a functionally rich product, this product will require either a lot of resources or a lot of time to develop. If, on the other hand, the most important requirement is for a fast delivery, either functionality will need to be sacrificed or extra resources will be required. These three elements should therefore be in balance—the optimal level of functionality, delivered within the optimal timeframe, with a reasonable expenditure of resources.
  3. B. A holistic approach ensures that each of the following five aspects is considered:
    • The design of the actual solution itself
    • The service management system and tools that will be required to manage the service
    • The management and technology architectures that the service will use
    • The processes needed to support the service in operation
    • The measurement systems, methods, and metrics that will be required
  4. C. An inflexible design, late delivery, and insufficient focus on the warranty aspects of capacity, availability, service continuity, and security all pose risks to the success of the design. Option C is incorrect because it wrongly describes warranty as fit for purpose. Warranty describes fitness for use.
  5. D. All the aspects listed must be considered if the design is to be successful. The technical components required must be specified, together with the third-party support contracts to ensure that those service components provided by suppliers are delivered to the required quality and cost. If the service is to deliver benefits, it will require properly trained staff to support it in the event of any incidents. Finally, the required reporting and governance controls must be in place to ensure that the service is secure and provides the required information. One such example is ensuring that a finance system provides an audit trail of financial expenditure authorization.
  6. B. The service design stage is responsible for researching and evaluating alternative solutions to meet the business requirement, for recommending the best solution, and for procuring it when the best option is to buy a product and further customize it if required. If the best option is to develop the solution in-house, this is also the responsibility of design. The development of the business case is a responsibility of the service strategy stage.
  7. A. The purpose of the service design stage of the lifecycle is to design IT services, with the necessary supporting IT practices, processes, and policies, to realize the service provider’s strategy. It is important to understand this point—design is not just about the technical design; it also considers the way it will be used and the processes required. Design should also include thinking about how the service will be transitioned; it should facilitate the introduction of the service into the supported environment in such a way as to ensure high-quality service delivery, customer satisfaction, and cost-effective service provision. Evaluating the financial impact of new or changed strategies on the service provider is the purpose of the financial management for IT services process, which is part of service strategy.
  8. B. ITIL lists the five aspects of service design as the design of the actual solution; the design of the service management system and tools required to manage the service (missing from the options provided here); the management and technology architectures that the service will use; the processes needed to support the service in operation; and the measurement systems, methods, and metrics that will be required. Risk management is not one of the five aspects.
  9. C. Service design plans should cover the approach, timescales, and resource requirements; the organizational and technical impact; risks; commercial aspects; training requirements; and appropriate communication methods. The output from this planning is captured in the service design package (SDP). The SDP should contain everything necessary for the subsequent testing, introduction, and operation of the solution or service. This should also include the production of a set of service acceptance criteria (SAC). All the suggested contents in the question are therefore valid except the change schedule and the CMS.
  10. D. The responsibilities of the design coordination process include producing the service design packages based on service charters and change requests and ensuring that these are handed over to service transition as agreed.

Chapter 8: Capacity, Availability, and Information Security Management

  1. A. Monitoring and forecasting capacity requirements and dealing with capacity issues and incidents are the responsibility of the capacity management process. Although capacity management would be consulted before capacity requirements would be agreed for inclusion in the SLA, it is the responsibility of the service level management process to negotiate these targets for service level agreements.
  2. A. The subprocesses of capacity management described in the ITIL framework are business, service, and component capacity management.
  3. C. Business capacity management is concerned with understanding the future business plans and their implications on the IT infrastructure. The detailed planning and management of the technical aspects is covered by the component capacity management subprocess, whereas the service capacity management subprocess is responsible for the service performance achieved in the operational environment.
  4. A. There are reactive and proactive elements to the process, to both plan and react to operational needs.
  5. B. Risk management is part of information security management but is not a responsibility of capacity management, which plans ahead and includes some contingency in case the expectations for the capacity requirements prove inaccurate. Both processes are cyclic—planning, implementing, monitoring the result, deciding on further actions required and planning them, and so on.
  6. A. The purpose of the information security management process is to develop and maintain an information security policy that aligns IT security with business security and ensures that the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the organization’s assets, information, data, and IT services always match the agreed needs of the business. The other purposes listed here are aspects of the implementation of such a policy.
  7. C. The elements of the information security management system include plan, implement, evaluate, maintain, and control. Planning incorporates the details and targets in the various agreements and contracts, and the various policies agreed to by the business and IT. Implementation requires awareness of the policies and the systems by all affected by them. Evaluation involves internal and external audits of the security, and maintain captures the lessons learned so that improvements can be planned and implemented. The overall approach is designed to maintain control and establish a framework for managing security throughout the organization.
  8. D. The security management information system (SMIS) is an output of the ISM process and is the repository for all the information related to information security management.
  9. D. The four key concepts are reliability, resilience, serviceability, and maintainability. Reliability is defined by ITIL as “a measure of how long a service, component, or CI can perform its agreed function without interruption.” Resilience is designing the service so that a component failure does not result in downtime. Maintainability is measured as the mean time to restore service (MTRS). Serviceability is defined as the ability of a third-party supplier to meet the terms of its contract.
  10. B. VBF stands for vital business function. Availability management works with the business to identify which services or parts of services are the most critical to achieving the required business outcomes. Understanding the VBFs informs decisions regarding where expenditure to protect availability is justified.

Chapter 9: IT Service Continuity Management and Demand Management

  1. B. Ensuring that the business has contingency plans in place in case of a disaster is the responsibility of the business, not IT service continuity management.
  2. D. BIA stands for business impact analysis.
  3. C. BCM and ITSCM are closely linked as described in the option.
  4. C. The number of incidents (4) is a KPI for incident management.
  5. C. Testing takes place during implementation and ongoing operation.
  6. C. Patterns of activity are mechanisms for tracking business activity to deliver business outcomes, which show how the business will need to use business services.
  7. B. Demand management is the process that matches business demands to the supply of services by the service provider. The demands will be defined as services through strategy and measured through service level management.
  8. A. Demand management will use all of these information sources.
  9. A. User profiles allow us to capture information about common roles and responsibilities in the organization to aid with the understanding of demands.
  10. D. Demand captures the information about consumption; consumption does not consume it. Patterns of production may or may not be found in highly synchronized patterns.

Chapter 10: Technology and Implementation Considerations for Planning, Protection, and Optimization

  1. D. The ability to authorize change requests is unlikely to be part of a self-service portal, but all of the rest are potentially standard capabilities.
  2. A. Management should provide support and guidance throughout service management, and commitment is apparent if they provide the budget to enable training, obtain tools, and so on.
  3. B. Time limited is not a valid type of license. All the other terms are descriptions of possible licensing options.
  4. D. Reporting is essential in service management. A good tool will have a selection of generic reports but should also provide the functionality to support tailored report requirements to support organizational needs.
  5. B. Adopting project management does not mean that service operation does not have to fund the change. All other answers are benefits of using project management.
  6. A. Statement 2 is incorrect; a tool does not need to have a service knowledge management system to be a service management tool. However, having details of all CIs and being able to link incidents, problems, requests, and so on is incredibly useful.
  7. C. All of the options are part of the generic requirements for a service management tool.
  8. B. Tools enable processes, not replace them, and although tools are used to support the processes, they should not define them.
  9. A. The Must, Should, Could, Would (MoSCoW) technique is used to categorize requirements in the selection of a tool. For example, the tool must have the ability to link incident records to problem records.
  10. B. The first step in selecting a toolset should be requirements gathering; if the requirements are not met, the tool may not function sufficiently to support the needs of the processes and teams.

Chapter 11: Introduction to Release, Control, and Validation

  1. C. Option C is an objective of service strategy, not service transition.
  2. C. It is design that turns strategy into deliverables (1), and it is in the service operations stage that the design is used in the real world and the strategy is realized (2).
  3. B. Service transition covers the transfer of services, as described in options 1, 3, and 4. Producing a business case is a service strategy task. Terminating a supplier contract would involve a number of transition tasks, such as updating the CMS and supplier and contract management information system, putting an alternative supplier in place, or taking the service in house.
  4. B. The purpose of service transition is to ensure seamless transition of designed services to meet the business expectations agreed in strategy.
  5. A. Capacity plans are developed as part of service design in the capacity management process.
  6. B. Change evaluation focus is strongly related to service transition because evaluation is part of ensuring that the release is fit for delivery into operation.
  7. C. Both statements are correct.
  8. D. These are all approaches that can be managed under transition.
  9. C. Service transition supports the introduction of new services.
  10. A. As with all improvement activity across the lifecycle, service transition engages with CSI to ensure that improvements are made and prioritized according to business need.

Chapter 12: Change Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management

  1. B. The purpose of the SACM process is to identify and control the assets that make up our services, and to maintain accurate information about these assets.
  2. D. SACM is a process that supports all stages of the service lifecycle by providing information about the assets that make up our services.
  3. C. A configuration record captures the information about a configuration item and records the attributes and relationships. It is stored in the CMDB. Option A is a service asset, Option B is a configuration item, and Option D is activity carried out in SACM.
  4. B. Although it may help provide background information to an incident, the CMS would not normally contain known errors and so forth.
  5. A. This information will be easily available in the CMS once the process is implemented, saving time and reducing the risk of changes. Staff members need to understand the criticality of an accurate CMS through an awareness campaign. The level of detail maintained must match the value of such information, and without effective change management, effective SACM is impossible.
  6. D. The ECAB decides on emergency changes; it needs to be a small group, because they need to be contacted and make a decision very quickly. The attendees are senior managers, who agree whether the proposed change is workable (using the senior technical manager’s assessment) and the risk is acceptable (the senior IT manager and the customer representative would decide on this).
  7. C. A call to the service desk may require a change to fulfill the request or resolve the incident. A change proposal defines a major change in principle; this may then lead to several smaller changes being raised. A project initiation document will outline the changes that the project will deliver; each will need to be agreed by change management.
  8. B. There may be several CABs, each responsible for dealing with changes for a particular geographic area, business unit, or other category.
  9. B. There are three different types of service change:
    • Standard changes are low risk and relatively common, and they follow a defined procedure. They are preauthorized.
    • Emergency changes must be implemented as soon as possible (for example, to resolve a major incident or implement a security patch). They are normally defined as changes where the risk of not carrying out the change is greater than the risk of implementing it.
    • All other changes are defined as normal changes.
  10. B. Change management ensures that changes to the IT services and components are delivered with the minimum of risk, within budget and in a controlled manner. Although business changes may involve IT changes, the achievement of the strategic business benefits of business changes is outside the scope of change management as described in ITIL.

Chapter 13: Service Validation and Testing and Change Evaluation

  1. D. The test report is not part of a test model. It is produced after testing is complete.
  2. C. The correct order is as follows: design tests, verify test plan, prepare test environment, perform tests, evaluate exit criteria and report, test cleanup and closure.
  3. D. The exit and entry criteria for testing are defined in the service design package.
  4. B. The left-hand side of the service V-model shows service requirements down to the detailed service design. The right-hand side focuses on the validation activities that are performed against these specifications.
  5. C. Any of the listed options are valid results.
  6. D. The objectives of change evaluation include setting stakeholder expectations correctly and providing accurate information to change management to prevent changes with an adverse impact and changes that introduce risk being transitioned unchecked. It also evaluates the intended and the unintended effects of a service change and provides good-quality outputs to enable change management to decide quickly whether a service change is to be authorized.
  7. B. The purpose of the change evaluation process is to understand the likely performance of a service change and how it might impact the business, the IT infrastructure, and other IT services. The process assesses the actual performance of a change against its predicted performance.
  8. D. These are the four main sections of the report as described in the change evaluation process.
  9. C. A model is a representation of a system, process, IT service, or configuration item that is used to help understand or predict future behavior.
  10. A. The trigger for change evaluation is receipt of a request for evaluation from change management.

Chapter 14: Release and Deployment Management and Knowledge Management

  1. A. Option B describes a release unit, Option C describes a release, and Option D describes a release model.
  2. B. Early life support is the handover that takes place between service transition and service operation during the deployment phase of release and deployment. It ensures that the support of the deployment and development teams is still available as the new or changed service is introduced to the live environment.
  3. C. SACM is the process that manages the naming convention for the configuration management system. Release management is concerned with the release controls that are specified in the release policy.
  4. D. Verification and audit is a step in the SACM process.
  5. C. Early life support takes place in the deployment phase, where the handover to service operation takes place.
  6. 1+B, 3+A, 4+C, 2+D. In the DIKW model, Data is a discrete set of facts, Information gives context to data, Knowledge is experiences, ideas, insights, values, and judgments, and Wisdom creates value through correct and well-informed decisions. This progression shows how Data needs to be built on in order to provide a meaningful opportunity for decision making. Data alone will not be sufficient to make a well-informed decision; it must be transformed through greater context and understanding to enable Wisdom.
  7. C. The tool is called the service knowledge management system (SKMS), and it’s a repository for information, data, and knowledge relating to service management. This has important connections for managing information and knowledge throughout the whole service lifecycle.
  8. D. Knowledge management is a process that has influence across the whole of the service lifecycle. It is used to capture and present ideas, perspectives, data, and information to all stages of the lifecycle, ensuring that the appropriate decisions can be made.
  9. B. A knowledge librarian is an alternative name for the knowledge management practitioner.
  10. A. The process owner is responsible for the creation of the mechanisms for data, information, and knowledge capture throughout the organization.

Chapter 15: Technology and Implementation Considerations for Release, Control, and Validation

  1. D. The six items in the question are all triggers for operational change listed in ITIL Service Operation.
  2. A. Service operation personnel should be involved in design and transition to ensure that the end result is supportable.
  3. C. ITIL and project management can be complementary; however, project management is not required for simple changes. Project management is useful where changes are large or complex. Not all operational changes are business as usual, and simple changes do not require project management.
  4. D. Service operation staff need to be involved early in the process to ensure that the design takes into account operational issues, but their involvement is also needed later. Service operation staff need to be involved late in the process to ensure that the schedule for implementation does not clash with other operational priorities, but their involvement is also needed earlier. Therefore, staff involvement is necessary throughout the design and implementation process to ensure that all operational issues and possible impacts are dealt with.
  5. D. These are all risks and should be mitigated using ITIL best practice for change, supplier, service strategy, and information security.
  6. B. Time limited is not a valid type of license listed in ITIL Service Operation.
  7. C. Both answers are correct. Transition is supported by specific process-related tools and enterprise-wide tools such as the configuration management system or service knowledge management system.
  8. D. Communities are often used to ensure collaboration across organizations.
  9. B. All of these are knowledge sharing tools.
  10. B. Discovery tools may be used, but they are not the only source for data entry in the CMS.

Chapter 16: Introduction to Service Offerings and Agreements

  1. B. The service design processes discussed in relation to service offerings and agreements include service level management, supplier management, service catalog management, and design coordination. The remaining service design processes of availability, capacity, IT service continuity management, and information security management are out of scope for service offerings and agreements.
  2. C. Option A is carried out by the manager of the service level management process. Option B is the responsibility of the transition planning and support process. Option D is completed by the IT steering group and senior management of the department.
  3. B. The design coordination process does not design the solution; it coordinates the work of others. It is responsible for ensuring that the design meets the requirements. It is responsible for providing a single coordination point and for ensuring that the objectives of the service design stage are met.
  4. B. Strategy management for IT services is responsible for deciding and describing what services the service provider will deliver to enable the organization to achieve its business outcomes, and which services will be the most appropriate to enable this. Ensuring that there are sufficient resources to provide the services to which it is committed is a purpose of the financial management for IT services process, not strategy management.
  5. D. Warranty refers to the ability of a service to be available when needed, to provide the required capacity, and to provide the required reliability in terms of continuity and security. Warranty can be summarized as how the service is delivered, and can be used to determine whether a service is fit for use.
  6. A. This is the correct definition of utility and warranty.
  7. B. These are the basic elements of a business case, as discussed as part of financial management.
  8. B. When a design needs to be changed or any of the individual elements of the design need to be amended, consideration must be given to all aspects. This is called having a holistic service design. Holistic service design therefore has taken into account all five aspects of design.
  9. B. Design coordination is responsible for the coordination of the service design lifecycle stage, not the service operation stage.
  10. D. ROI can be calculated objectively as a straightforward comparison between the profits generated by the new service or the reduced cost in provision compared to the cost of implementing that service. There may also be many other aims for a service that are qualitative, and therefore measurement of these is subjective.

Chapter 17: Service Portfolio Management and Service Catalog Management

  1. D. The service portfolio has information that can be used by all stages of the service lifecycle. It is sometimes referred to as the spine of the lifecycle approach.
  2. D. The service portfolio allows the IT provider and customer to determine whether the correct services are being provided to meet the business needs by creating a holistic view of all the services under the control of the service provider. This includes services under development and retired services.
  3. A. Each of the catalogs is described accurately—customer-facing services are viewed in the business/customer catalog, the technical catalog provides visibility of the supporting services, and the multiview catalog will provide visibility of all services to the appropriate audience.
  4. C. A service catalog is a documented information source that details the information relating to all live services.
  5. C. Strategic services is not a name used in the ITIL framework, so this can be discounted. Retired services are captured as part of the service portfolio. Customer-facing and supporting services are the descriptions of the services captured in the service catalog.
  6. B. The service catalog is the central section of the service portfolio; therefore, it forms a part of the service portfolio.
  7. C. Options A and B specify only a part of the catalog each, whereas C correctly states the visibility of services and business processes in the catalog. Services under development will be shown in the service portfolio.
  8. A. The service catalog shows details of all live operational services, and these may interact with a number of processes. Therefore, it can be connected to the majority of lifecycle processes.
  9. C. The service portfolio is a service strategy process. It supports the decision of what services to offer and to whom, which is a strategic concern.
  10. B. The service portfolio manager is responsible for marketing the portfolio so that customers and potential customers are aware of the services available.

Chapter 18: Service Level Management and Supplier Management

  1. A. A high-level relationship with the customer is provided through the business relationship management process. The single point of contact for the users is the service desk. Service transition looks after the smooth transition of services.
  2. B. Option A is an objective of change management, Option C is an objective of the service desk, and Option D is an objective of problem management.
  3. C. You would not find a definition of business strategy in a service level agreement.
  4. C. A strategic business plan and an internal finance agreement are not commonly part of the support of an SLA.
  5. D. Option A describes an operational level agreement. Option B describes a service level agreement. Option C describes a sort of agreement that is not defined as part of service level management. Option D provides the correct definition of an underpinning contract.
  6. B. The service level monitoring chart is also known as a RAG status—red, amber, and green.
  7. D. Supplier management is concerned with external suppliers only.
  8. C. Tactical is the other category, not trusted.
  9. C. ITIL recommends that suppliers are categorized according to the risk and impact to the achievement of business objectives and goals, and the relative value and importance of the supplier in providing the service.
  10. C. These are both correct. The SCMIS is a repository for information relating to suppliers, such as supplier policies and contracts.

Chapter 19: Business Relationship Management and Financial Management for IT

  1. D. Service valuation is defined as the ability to understand the costs of a service relative to its business value. Accounting is the process responsible for identifying the actual costs of delivering IT services, comparing them with budgeted costs, and managing variance from the budget. The framework that allows the service provider to determine the costs of providing services is the cost model, and the activity of predicting and controlling the spending of money is budgeting.
  2. D. Option A is incorrect because IT finances are a subset of the enterprise’s finances, and the same rules and controls apply to it as to any other department. With regard to Option B, internal service providers may not necessarily charge for their services directly. Option C is incorrect because external service providers will not usually share this information, which would show their profit margins, to their customers.
  3. C. Ensuring that the service provider does not commit to services that they are not able to provide is one of the objectives of financial management. The other options are objectives of BRM.
  4. C. Budgeting is defined as the activity of predicting and controlling the spending of money.
  5. D. Business relationship management has a strategic, not an operational focus. It is also responsible for identifying customer needs, deciding which services the service provider will deliver to meet them, and ensuring that the service provider is able to meet them.
  6. A. Business relationship management will work with the business to build a business case for a new service. Service level management is only involved in ensuring that the service can be provided as required, not whether it is the best use of investment funds.
  7. A. Both are true statements, and both portfolios are data repositories used by BRM.
  8. B. Should the service provider’s ROI be less than predicted in the business case, this may be a trigger for CSI, but it is not a trigger for BRM.
  9. B. Business relationship management uses the customer portfolio to record all customers of the IT service provider, and it uses the customer agreement portfolio to manage service contracts or agreements between an IT service provider and its customers (although this portfolio is actually managed by service level management). It does not use the supplier and contract management information system or the CMS.
  10. D. Service valuation is the ability to understand the costs of a service relative to its business value, and it is an important output from FMITS, as is service investment analysis, where FMITS provides the information to enable the service provider to determine the value of the investment in a service. The FMITS process ensures compliance to corporate and legislative standards regarding the storage and archiving of financial data. FMITS does not make any agreements about funding or charge for services; this is the responsibility of BRM, although FMITS may be consulted.

Chapter 20: Technology Considerations for Service Offerings and Agreements

  1. C. Stating the budget in advance would hamper negotiation later, which makes Option C the incorrect statement. The other three statements are true.
  2. A. Customization (but not configuration) will have to be repeated for each upgrade. Configuration would not affect supplier support obligations (customization might). Out-of-the-box tools would mean standard training could be used. Processes should be defined before tool selection. The tool should follow the process, not vice versa.
  3. C. Explanation: M stands for must have requirements, S stands for should have requirements, C stands for could have requirements, and W stands for would like in the future requirements.
  4. C. The steps in Option C are in the right order. Option A suggests selection criteria first, but this cannot be done without understanding requirements. Option B puts shortlisting toward the end of the steps, which would mean a lot of investigation into an unsuitable tool could be done unnecessarily. Option D goes straight to product identification without requirements gathering.
  5. B. The use of a service design tool will not reduce testing time. All the other options show actual benefits of using a tool.
  6. A. The tool should fit the process, not the other way around. It is acceptable if the tool fails to fit some process areas and some changes are made to the process as long as they are not major.
  7. B. It is insufficient to just address the tool’s capabilities and how it matches the process; due diligence should be carried out to ensure that the support offered is of the required standard.
  8. C. All of the listed aspects should be considered. Excluding any of these may mean the tool does not meet the requirements.
  9. D. These costs should all be included. If the tool is implemented but insufficient training or configuration is carried out, the capabilities of the tool will not be realized. Without good reporting, the data held in the tool will not be easily available, and so monitoring achievement against targets, monitoring of KPIs, and so on will be ineffective. Without time spent setting up the web portal, a major advance in terms of efficiency will not be realized because a poorly implemented portal will not be used by the customers. Failure to include these costs explains why so many operation initiatives fail; there is an attempt to deliver too much as business as usual rather than as a costed and funded project.
  10. B. Training will still be required, but access to the service across a network to the supplier will simplify implementation and may reduce costs.
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