Free ITIL ITIL-4-Foundation Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 10

Continual improvement encompasses all elements of the ITIL SVS. It involves aligning an organization’s practices and services with changing business needs, through the ongoing assessment and improvement of each element involved in the management of products and services. Continual improvement applies to the SVS in its entirety, as well as to all of the organization’s products, services, service components, and relationships, and is the responsibility of every individual involved in service management.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-continual-improvement/

An SLA is defined as a documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies both services required and the expected level of service.

SLAs are used to measure the performance of services from the customer’s point of view, and it is important that they are agreed in the wider business context.

Some of the key requirements for successful SLAs include:

They must be related to a defined ‘service’ in the service catalogue. Individual metrics without a specified service context are unhelpful.

They should relate to defined outcomes and not simply operational metrics. This can be achieved with balanced bundles of metrics, such as customer satisfaction and key business outcomes.

They should reflect an ‘agreement’: an engagement and discussion between the service provider and the service consumer. It is important to involve all stakeholders, including partners, sponsors, users, and customers.

They must be simply written and easy to understand and use for all parties.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-service-level-management/#:~:text=Service%20Level%20Agreements%20(SLAs) &text=Some%20of%20the%20key%20requirements,and%20not%20simply%20operational%20metrics.

A user is a person who uses services on a day-to-day basis. Users are distinct from customers, as some customers do not use the service directly1. Users are one of the key stakeholders in service management2. References: ITIL Foundation - ITIL 4 Edition, page 5; ITIL® 4 – A Pocket Guide, page 18.

Error control also regularly re-assesses the status of known errors that have not been resolved, taking account of the overall impact on customers and/or service availability, and the cost of permanent resolutions, and effectiveness of workarounds

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-problem-management/#:~:text=Error%20control%20also%20regularly%20re,resolutions%2C%20and%20effectiveness%20of%20workarounds.

In ITIL, there are six activities in the service value chain which represent the steps an organization takes in the creation of value:

Plan

Engage

Design and Transition

Obtain/Build

Deliver and Support

Improve

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-service-value-chain/

Emergency changes. These are changes that must be implemented as soon as possible; for example, to resolve an incident or implement a security patch. Emergency changes are not typically included in a change schedule, and the process for assessment and authorization is expedited to ensure they can be implemented quickly. As far as possible, emergency changes should be subject to the same testing, assessment, and authorization as normal changes, but it may be acceptable to defer some documentation until after the change has been implemented, and sometimes it will be necessary to implement the change with less testing due to time constraints. There may also be a separate change authority for emergency changes, typically including a small number of senior managers who understand the business risks involved.”

https://itsm.tools/why-what-change-management/#:~:text=Emergency%20changes. &text=Emergency%20changes%20are%20not%20typically,they%20can%20be%20implemented%20quickly.

The purpose of the service configuration management practice is to ensure that accurate and reliable information about the configuration of services, and the CIs that support them, is available when and where it is needed. This includes information on how CIs are configured and the relationships between them.

https://wiki.process-symphony.com.au/framework/lifecycle/process/service-configuration-management-itil-4/

To set clear business-based targets for service performance, so that the delivery of a service can be properly assessed, monitored, and managed against these targets.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-management-practices/

Think and work holistically

No service, practice, process, department, or supplier stands alone. The outputs that the organization delivers to itself, its customers, and other stakeholders will suffer unless it works in an integrated way to handle its activities as a whole, rather than as separate parts.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-guiding-principles/#:~:text=5.,rather%20than%20as%20separate%20parts.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-guiding-principles/

The ITIL SVS describes how all the components and activities of the organization work together as a system to enable value creation.

The SVS is made up of specific inputs, elements, and outputs relevant to service management. The key inputs to the SVS are opportunity and demand. The output of the SVS is value delivered by products and services.

Opportunity refers to options or possibilities to add value for stakeholders or otherwise improve the organization.

Demand refers to need or desire for products and services among internal and external consumers.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-service-value-system/

You need to use all of your resources as effectively and efficiently as you can. This means that you should automate wherever you can, and use people only for tasks that can’t be automated. It also means that you need to think carefully about what you can automate and about the circumstances where only a person will do; and about simplifying those processes you do decide to automate to eliminate wasteful or inefficient steps.

You should always optimize the work BEFORE you automate it, as automating something that is inefficient or ineffective may just result in you doing the wrong thing faster!

https://www.sysaid.com/blog/itil/the-7-guiding-principles-of-itil-4-practical-advice-to-help-you-make-decisions

Effective incident management often requires a high level of collaboration within and between teams as this can facilitate information-sharing and learning, as well as helping to solve the incident more efficiently and effectively. There may also be a need for good collaboration tools so that people working on an incident can work together effectively. One technique that takes advantage of collaboration is termed swarming. This brings many different stakeholders together to work on the issue. Management of incidents may require frequent interaction with third party suppliers, and routine management of this aspect of supplier contracts is often part of the incident management practice.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/itil-incident-management/