ITIL itilsc-soa practice test
ITIL Service Capability Service Offerings and Agreements
Question 1
Scenario
An internet banking organization plans to expand operations outside of its current market. Whilst the exact details have yet to
be established, it is clear that the IT organization must expand its service offerings within the current portfolio in order to
support this growth. It is equally apparent that external customer needs for banking will vary from market to market and that
consequently this will require development of completely new service offerings.
You are the head of service within the IT organization. You helped the organization adopt the ITIL framework some years
ago and now have most processes in place. Service owners are allocated for the main IT services. Mature service portfolio,
service catalogue and service level management processes are in place.
The expansion requires ownership of a business relationship management process and you are considering the role profile
for this post.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options provides the BEST overview of the business relationship managers (BRM)
responsibilities which will be key to support the expansion?
- A. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will work closely with the customer to understand the value proposition of any new IT services that will be required to support the expansion program. The BRM will liaise with the service level manager and service owners to develop the designs of any new IT services, thereby creating value for both parties. The BRM will ensure customer expectations of new services do not exceed what they have agreed to pay for.
- B. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will identify the business requirements associated with the expansion program especially concentrating on gaining a clear understanding of business outcomes and business drivers. The BRM will liaise with the service portfolio manager to understand how the business outcomes can be supported by IT services, and, where possible, create new services and service offerings for inclusion in the service catalogue. It is key that the BRM understands how changes to the customer environment in different operating markets might affect the delivery of services.
- C. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain their trust, and help them develop their business area. This would help both the IT organization and the company become more successful. If the BRM commits time and energy, it should be possible to improve the IT services quickly to meet the needs of the expansion program and therefore achieve the business objectives. The BRM should take responsibility for the services and their development, while the service level manager will take responsibility for customer liaison. The BRM will take ultimate responsibility for ensuring the customer needs are met by the service provider by managing any third parties in the emerging markets.
- D. The BRM will have primary responsibility for engaging actively with the customers. They should develop a mutual understanding with the customers and have a good working knowledge of their business. The BRM would also work closely with the service owners to understand the profile and usage of the IT services, to help develop the IT services and to create a new service catalogue for the new markets. The BRM will articulate service provider business requirement to the customer to prevent them asking for services that would involve them paying more for the IT service they receive.
Answer:
B
Question 2
Scenario
A clothing manufacturer has made a decision to supplement factory-based retail outlets by opening a series of stores at out-
of-town shopping malls.
The internal IT organization provides support to many mission-critical business systems for both the manufacturing and retail
operations. It must increase its portfolio of services and service options to meet the planned new expansion. Typically, the
business is subject to seasonal patterns of demand, which recently have begun to exceed the capability of some of the IT
services. This has led to periods of poor performance of some of the critical systems and therefore to degraded service
quality. In periods of minimal demand, there is a surplus of capacity and performance is optimal.
There is concern that the additional business demand from the new stores will exacerbate these service performance issues.
The board of directors, made up of representatives from each business unit, has asked for a review of the business supply
and demand issues currently being faced by the IT organization. Many service management processes have been
implemented including service portfolio management and capacity management. However, IT does not have a demand
management process.
Additionally, performance levels on many of the supporting services have remained unchanged for the past 3 years, even
though some may now be less relevant to the overall performance of the critical services.
Refer to the Scenario.
The review of the supply and demand issues concluded that the implementation of a demand management process could
help the IT organization address the issues. Which one of the following options provides the BEST solution to both the
problems currently being faced and those related to the proposed expansion?
- A. The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business units requirements in order to understand their patterns of business activity (PBA) and corresponding usage of the IT services. Differentiated service offerings should be developed to match PBA; this will make better use of available IT resources. Supporting service performance targets should be amended to reflect these changes. Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the companys expansion plans.
- B. An analysis should be carried out of each business units patterns of business activity (PBA), and appropriate services for each business unit selected from the service catalogue. In conjunction with the finance department, a revised cost model should be introduced to allow for the fluctuation in usage and costs. Differential charging should be introduced to address the issues of service quality.
- C. The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business units requirements to understand their current usage of the IT services and where seasonal variations lead to fluctuations in usage. Discussions should take place with the business units to impose limits within specific time periods for each business units usage of IT services. Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the companys expansion plans.
- D. The service portfolio should be reviewed and the business units cumulative service usage should be reviewed, monitored and analyzed. Work with the business to develop short-term measures to manage demand for the IT services, such as delayed or batch processing of retail transactions. Service levels should be reviewed to take into account changes to supporting service performance targets and, where applicable, agreements should be updated through change management.
Answer:
A
Question 3
Scenario
A large, privately owned company has an internal IT organization that runs most of its IT operations from the head office.
There has been a history of confusion about what is required from the services and what has actually been achieved,
particularly from a warranty perspective. This has resulted in a strained relationship between the business units and the IT
organization.
Some service-based agreements exist between IT and the customers, where all levels of response to incidents were set to
the same targets. Availability targets have not been reviewed for at least two years. There have been a number of
complaints by key customers claiming that the IT staff have been resolving incidents and implementing change requests
based on operational ease rather than business priority. This is despite operationally robust processes being in place for
incident, change and problem management.
A plan has been put in place to improve the level of the IT service delivered to the organization.
Retirement of the post-holder meant that the first action was to appoint a new IT director. The opportunity was taken to select
a candidate from an external organization, who was committed to the ITIL framework. The new IT director believes that good
IT service management practices are essential.
The IT director plans to implement many of the service management processes and has already overseen the creation of a
basic service catalogue. The IT director is sure that many of the current issues can be rectified through the implementation of
service level management (SLM) and has therefore directed that service level agreements (SLA) be introduced for the
services provided before moving onto other areas. You have been asked to lead the project to establish SLAs for the IT
services.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following sequence of activities would be the BEST approach to establishing service levels agreements
(SLA) in the organization?
- A. Identify all of the services currently delivered using the service catalogue. Define a primarily customer-based approach to implementing service levels agreements (SLAs). Using a pre-prepared pro-forma service level requirements (SLR) template, meet with the appropriate customer representatives to discuss and document their service level requirements. Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to discuss, document and agree the levels of service required. Draft agreements from these discussions are then reviewed by service operations to ensure that no existing agreements will be compromised and, once this has been confirmed, the SLA is formally reviewed, agreed, and signed by both the customer and IT. The service level targets are then formally communicated, monitored, reported upon and reviewed at the agreed intervals.
- B. Identify all the services currently delivered using the service catalogue. Define a primarily service-based approach to implementing service level agreements. Using the service templates already in use, meet with the appropriate customer representatives and, after discussion, produce formal SLRs which document the levels of service that the customer needs. Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to discuss, document and communicate the levels of service required. From these discussions operational level agreements (OLAs) are then produced. The SLRs and OLAs can be formally monitored, reported upon and reviewed at the agreed intervals.
- C. Meet with the IT operations team, specifically, those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to define what level of service they can offer to the business against each service in the service catalogue. Meet with the appropriate customer representatives to give them a clear understanding of the levels of service IT can offer. Produce and agree an SLA and ensure it is signed by representatives of both parties. Document and agree OLAs with the service operation teams. Ensure all parties understand their responsibilities and enforce penalties for non-compliance. Once both agreements have been signed, all service level targets are then formally monitored and reviewed.
- D. Identify all of the services currently delivered using the service catalogue. Define a primarily service-based approach to implementing service level agreements. Meet with the appropriate business representatives and, after discussion, produce a formal SLA that guarantees the levels of service that the business needs. Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to inform them of the service levels you have agreed Document and agree OLAs with the service operation teams. Once these are agreed and signed the OLAs are passed back to the business to demonstrate that IT will support the SLA and to build upon the trust between the two parties.
Answer:
A
Question 4
Refer to Scenario
An IT services company has been providing hosted and managed IT services to a number of major customers for over 20
years. It has invested heavily in ITIL-based service management processes over the last five years, which has resulted in an
increase in the quality of the IT services and an increase in customer satisfaction with the services. This activity has led to a
significant growth in the number of customers that the company serves.
The company has implemented all of the service design, service transition and service operation processes to some extent,
and is now developing other processes based on ITIL service strategy. As a result of this latest activity they have recognized
that their existing service management tool is limited in its ability to support several existing processes, and all of the planned
new ones. The supplier of the existing tool is reducing its investment in future development of the tool and is, therefore,
unwilling to commit to any additional new facilities or functionality. This has now become an issue for the company and, as a
result, they are looking to replace the existing tool with a more comprehensive alternative.
The company plans to develop a requirements specification for the replacement tool and is redwing the areas that need to
be considered, including its deployment throughout the organization. The budget for the new tool is limited, therefore it is
essential that the new tool can be implemented and used as quickly as possible in order to obtain maximum return on
investment (ROI).
Which one of the following options provides the BEST description of the areas that should be addressed by the requirements
specification for the new tool?
- A. The usability and functionality of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the number of customers and users of the services and their geographical locations The plans for the deployment and the associated documentation needed for the tool.
- B. The utility and warranty of the new tool The conformance of the tool to international open standards The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
- C. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The number of potential users of the tool together with the number of licenses and their geographical locations required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool documentation.
- D. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to migrate data from existing tools and to integrate with other tools The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The type and timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
Answer:
D
Question 5
Scenario
A commercial IT services company has been successful for many years. Its key strategic differentiator has been the
provision of new services to meet customers needs in very short lead times. Recently profits have dipped, forcing senior
management to take a look at the lifecycle costs of providing the IT services to their external customers.
The organization has had a service catalogue containing customer and supporting views for some time. It is an essential
source of information about the IT services and is used by both the business relationship managers and the IT services
teams. Services are designed internally but often transitioned and operated in partnership with other suppliers.
For each service, the service catalogue currently contains:
A description of the service
Summary of the service level targets
The level of support and support details
Details of the supporting services and components
Details of services obtained from suppliers
When sales leads are obtained from potential new customers, the requirements are compared with services in the service
catalogue and, if no matching service can be found, a project is set up to quickly develop a new service. In the past this has
been justified as meeting the needs of the customers, and full business cases were not developed.
A senior service manager has suggested introducing a service portfolio management process and needs to get the support
of the IT management team. The management team wishes to know what extra information would be included in a service
portfolio over and above what is already in the service catalogue and what value it would be to them.
The company is looking to restrict investment in new resources. Therefore, only a few projects can be authorized in the next
budget cycle.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following sets of statements BEST describes the elements that a service portfolio contains in addition to the
elements in a service catalogue, and describes the additional value service portfolio management would bring to the IT
services company in resolving their current issues?
- A. The service portfolio will include: resource allocation; support terms and conditions; ordering and request procedures; the value proposition; offerings and packages. The service portfolio will show where additional resources will be required to operate new services. Service portfolio management will enable the organization to rationalize existing services to optimize the use of resources.
- B. The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; business outcomes supported; cost and pricing. The service portfolio will show the proportion of resources acquired from key suppliers so that the cost of new services can be accurately estimated. Creating a service portfolio that includes services in the service pipeline, as well as those in the service catalogue, will enable new services currently being developed to be included in service offerings. This increased visibility of new services extends the range available for new opportunities.
- C. The service portfolio will include: ordering and request procedures; service level targets; support terms and conditions; details of services obtained from suppliers. The service portfolio will show the resources and capabilities that are needed to improve the services in the service catalogue. Service portfolio management will enable the organization to expand the service catalogue to include details of service requests and standard changes, providing a valuable self-help portal to users.
- D. The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; investment priorities; value propositions. The service portfolio will show where resources are used across all stages of the service lifecycle both within the provider and where they have been acquired from suppliers. Service portfolio management will improve the organizations ability to compare potential investments and make sound decisions.
Answer:
D
Question 6
Scenario
An IT services company provides IT services to many customers. The company has grown rapidly over the last three years
and has recognized the need to implement service management processes to ensure that they continue to provide services
that meet their customer's needs. A service management implementation project was set up a year ago and most processes
are now in place including service level management and service catalogue management. In addition a business relationship
manager has been allocated.
An opportunity has arisen to engage a new customer, which could lead to a very large contract. Contact has been made with
the potential customer and a meeting arranged. This will be the first time that these processes have been used to engage a
new customer and the IT service manager wishes to make sure that all concerned are clear of their roles.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options CORRECTLY assigns the responsibilities to the service level manager, service catalogue
manager and the business relationship manager?
Responsibilities:
- A. Service catalogue manager - 3, 7, 8, 9 Service level manager - 1, 2, 4 Business relationship manager- 5, 6, 10
- B. Service catalogue manager - 1, 7 Service level manager - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 Business relationship manager- 2, 5, 9
- C. Service catalogue manager - 1, 8 Service level manager - 2, 3, 5, 9 Business relationship manager- 4, 6, 7, 10
- D. Service catalogue manager - 1, 8, 9 Service level manager - 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 Business relationship manager- 4, 6
Answer:
D
Question 7
Scenario
The IT organization of a manufacturing company is carrying out an annual review of its service portfolio. There is limited
budget available for the next year and some projects may be delayed or cancelled. The company has control of most of its IT
services, however some are mandated by the company's corporate owners.
The following services are under review:
Service 1: Web ordering service. This is a new service that will enable the company to fulfill its strategy to sell products on-
line and increase its customer base by 20%. Only high-level business requirements have been established so far but. if the
project goes ahead, the system will be provided by a supplier using standard applications and technology. A business case
has been created which shows the ratio of value-to-cost to be much greater than one.
Service 2: Sales office service. The service has grown from a number of separate applications that have been combined
into one suite. The technical solution for each application is similar but some use different versions of the same operating
system. The applications themselves provide the required utility and support their business outcomes well. There is some
overlap in functionality across the set of applications contained in the service suite.
Service 3: Finance reporting service. The service is used by the finance department to create statutory reports to fulfill
legal obligations. The service is hosted on a legacy system. The cost of supporting the service is increasing gradually and
the return obtained from the service is decreasing. Eventually the service will be replaced by the new enterprise resource
planning (ERP) service. It is projected that, over the next two years, the ratio of value-to-cost will drop to less than one.
Service 4: This is a new ERP service that is being implemented across all companies in the corporate group. It will
eventually replace many existing services including the finance reporting service. The service has been approved and
chartered, and has a current status of "design". A large number of assets have been allocated to this project. As this service
is mandated by the corporate owners, no further decision is required.
Refer to Scenario:
As part of the service portfolio management team you have been asked to recommend whether investments should be made
in these services in the next year.
Which of the following options is the BEST set of decisions to make for the services?
- A. Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design project Service 2 - replace. Set up project to replace the set of applications with a single application designed to support the business outcomes Service 3 - retire. Mark the service for retirement and set up a retirement project. This will make best use of resources and ensure that information is migrated to the ERP service.
- B. Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue, project Service 2 - retain. Keep the service and support Service 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this project will use assets that will be allocated review. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the it in its current form service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual
- C. Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design project Service 2 - rationalize. Set up a project to identify the best way of retaining the support of the business outcomes but eliminating the duplication of functionality and supporting components Service 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement project will use assets that will be allocated elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual review.
- D. Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the project Service 2 re-factor. Set up project to redesign the applications to concentrate on the core functionality of the service Service 3 - retain. As the service is needed to fulfill legal and statutory compliance it should be retained.
Answer:
C
Question 8
Scenario
A travel company specializes in providing complete holiday packages to meet customer requirements. There have been
instances over the past year where the business has been unable to process holiday bookings due to failure of the IT
services. Sales have been lost and the failure has been raised at board level. The IT director has assured the board that the
situation will be rectified.
Most holiday bookings are made either by telephone via the company's call centre or through a dedicated website. Both
interface with the same back-end booking-processing service. Apart from the call centre and website, the main business
services map onto organizational departments and cover: marketing, finance, business operations and central
administration.
After some initial investigation within the IT organization, it is clear that the intermittent failures, which were related to a lack
of capacity, have occurred during exceptional peak holiday booking periods. The IT organization is not certain when or if
these are going to occur in the future. Some booking periods are predictable, such as those associated with promotional
offers. Other patterns are totally unpredictable as they often coincide with bad weather being experienced where customers
live.
You have been asked how the activities of demand management, based on ITIL practices, can be used to address this
issue.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options is the BEST set of actions required to resolve the issue?
- A. Identify the pattern of customer enquiries for holiday bookings and the resulting volume, frequency and location of staff activity. Document these as patterns of business activity (PBA) Gain an understanding of the different roles that are performed by staff from all business units and how these relate to the PBA for all business processes. Use this information to identify any shortfall in capacity and create cost estimates of additional resource required to enable the IT services to meet the PBA. Recommend that, where PBA are very predictable, investment should be made in additional resource. Where PBA are unpredictable, the risks associated with railing to meet demand should be discussed with the business managers, and mitigation actions agreed.
- B. Identify the pattern of customer enquiries for holiday bookings and the resulting volume, frequency and location of staff activity. Document these as PBA. Gain an understanding of the different roles that are performed by the call centre staff and how these relate to the PBA for the call centre business processes. Use this information to identify any shortfall in capacity and create cost estimates of additional resource required to enable the IT services to meet the PBA. Discuss the risks associated with failing to meet demand with the business managers. Reach agreement on how to avoid a repeat of the IT failures caused by demand at busy periods.
- C. Identify and understand the PBA resulting from metrics of all the IT services. Ensure that the volume, frequency and location of service use is taken into account. Gain an understanding of how the PBA relate to the use of the IT assets especially the hardware and software that may be the cause of the IT failures. Once these activities have been completed, the PBA will be used to plan and implement sufficient capacity to meet all demand at all times. Discuss the risks associated with failing to meet demand with capacity management and technical staff. Reach agreement on how to avoid a repeat of the IT failures caused by demand at busy periods.
- D. Immediately implement demand management, document the process and allocate roles and responsibilities. The demand manager should initiate an activity to identify and understand user profiles resulting from business use of the IT services. Code the user profiles linking them to the associated business roles. Match the user profiles to the IT services and analyze any shortfall in capacity required to meet the business objectives. Create a business case for the additional resource required to exceed the business demand for the IT services to account for unpredictable business activity. Work with service portfolio management and financial management to agree on the approval of the investment and initiate the project to acquire all the additional resources.
Answer:
A
Question 9
Scenario
A retail company has enjoyed significant growth in profit over the past year due to negotiating lower buying costs from its
suppliers. The organization wishes to reinvest some of this profit to fund a program of change to optimize the use of IT
services. They hope this will support revenue growth in the next financial year whilst maintaining profitability.
The program consists of two main initiatives:
An expansion of the on-line retailing services to offer more functionality
Enhancement of the marketing service to allow greater targeting of promotional offers.
There are various options for providing these services that involve use of the current infrastructure or the new virtualization
technology, which is slowly being deployed across the organization.
The board of directors wishes to conduct a financial review over the next 3 months to compare the cost of providing each
service. Projected business revenues will allow the return on investment (ROI) of each option to be calculated. This review
will provide an input to the IT organizations service portfolio management process, allowing the various investment options
to be considered and an informed decision to be made.
The organization has a good appreciation of its IT costs along with a mature service catalogue and configuration
management system (CMS).
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options would be the BEST approach to providing the information for the financial review of the
service options?
- A. Appoint an IT finance manager to implement budgeting and accounting for IT services. Create a cost model that takes into account direct and indirect costs, as well as fixed and variable costs. Use the cost model to calculate the cost of providing the IT services and provide the information to service portfolio management (SPM).
- B. Produce a summary of current costs, apportioning all costs directly to the appropriate service. Any investment in virtualization or new infrastructure should be shared equally between the two services. This creates a baseline for comparison with the anticipated business revenues and ROI that will enable a business case to be developed for each option.
- C. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services. Use service level agreements to understand how the services are used and create a model for the services, ensuring that both current and projected costs are shared appropriately. These costs can then be compared with the cost of outsourcing the service and with the anticipated business revenue.
- D. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services. The various options for providing the service, including those requiring investment in new infrastructure, can then be costed. Using the projected revenues supplied, a calculation can establish the ROI for each option. These costs and ROI for each option can then be compared through the service portfolio management process and used as an input to develop a business case for the most advantageous options.
Answer:
D
Question 10
A major international company owns shopping malls in many countries. They are responsible for the security, safety and
comfort of shoppers visiting the stores in the mall and the facilities management of the locations. The company relies on IT
services provided by its IT division. The IT division consists of a corporate IT department at the company's headquarters and
a local IT team at each mall. The IT division obtains IT services and products from over 100 different suppliers globally.
The management of suppliers within the IT division is currently performed by the local IT teams in each country, often by the
most appropriate technical manager. This has resulted in inconsistent processes and levels of service across the countries.
The management team realizes that this is an ineffective use of IT resources and will have an impact on the future growth of
the company. They are currently reviewing the situation and wish to develop supplier management processes that are more
closely aligned to ITIL practices. The management team recently conducted a survey of all of the local IT teams within the
different countries to collect details about the number and type of contracts and suppliers.
The IT division has developed and implemented many other ITIL processes over the last two years, which has led to
significant improvements. The management team would like to build on this success and develop and implement a supplier
management process. You have recently joined the corporate IT department and have been given the results of the survey
carried out by the management team.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options is the BEST sequence of activities to adopt in order to implement a supplier management
process and to bring the current situation under control?
- A. 1. Design and develop a supplier management process. 2. Define and agree a supplier policy. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a supplier and contract management information system (SCMIS) from the survey feedback. 5. Deploy the process in the corporate IT department as a pilot. 6. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each contract and supplier. 7. Deploy the process in the remaining countries and conduct a program of awareness and training.
- B. 1. Define and agree a supplier policy. 2. Design and develop a supplier management process. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a SCMIS from the survey feedback. 5. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each supplier. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Identify where there are duplicate or multiple contracts in place with suppliers and instigate an initiative to review these with the relevant suppliers.
- C. 1. Carry out a further review of the suppliers used by each store in each country. 2. Establish and populate the SCMIS from the results of the exercise. 3. Design and develop a supplier management process. 4. Define and agree a supplier policy. 5. Appoint a supplier manager from the corporate IT department to manage all contracts and all suppliers. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Renew all contracts to try to obtain better terms and conditions.
- D. 1. Define and agree a supplier policy. 2. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each supplier. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a SCMIS from the survey feedback. 5. Design and develop a supplier management process. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Work with the service level manager to ensure that all contracts correctly underpin service level agreements.
Answer:
D
Question 11
Scenario
A flower delivery company introduced ITIL-based service management processes 12 months ago.
One major benefit of the associated service improvement initiatives was that the service availability of the business critical
on-line flower ordering IT service increased from 97% to 98.9% over the last quarter. This exceeds the service availability
target of 98.5%. Last month, reports were circulated showing the availability improvement.
The service level manager is chairing a service review meeting to review the progress and report upon this achievement.
The customer managers acknowledge the improvement but despite the reports of improved service availability, a major
service outage occurred during the busiest week of the year when over 25% of the annual business revenue is normally
earned. Although IT dealt with the outage satisfactorily, the loss of revenue and credibility in this mission critical, high-
visibility trading period are serious concerns. The customer managers are concerned that the reporting does not seem to
reflect this or their actual perception of the service.
Agreement is reached at the meeting to address two primary concerns:
1. Service availability targets for the mission critical periods are to be revised.
2. Amended and more representative business reports are to be produced.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options will BEST ensure that the primary concerns related to the revision and reporting of targets
are addressed?
- A. Determine what information each IT team can provide regarding the collection and reporting of component availability. Implement revised mechanisms for the analysis, calculation and reporting of service availability. Ensure that event management is implemented to trigger alerts in response to availability issues. This will allow for reactive measures to be introduced so that, if services fail to meet their availability targets, proper actions can be taken to mitigate future failures.
- B. Meet with the customer managers to conduct a thorough review of all services and document all revised service level requirements (SLRs), ensuring that business impact and seasonal variations are taken into account. The SLRs should be transformed into a balanced scorecard of service targets with a dashboard for reporting purposes. Mechanisms should be agreed and implemented to collect, analyze and report against the agreed service targets using the change management process. Reports should be circulated to customer managers five working days in advance of service review meetings.
- C. Meet with the customer managers to review and document their availability requirements, ensuring that business impact and seasonal variations are taken into account. Review the monitoring and measurement mechanisms and ensure that they can measure both component and end-to-end service availability. Agree the revised service availability reporting requirements with the customer. Agree and revise service level agreements and operational level agreements as necessary and implement any changes to the monitoring and reporting mechanisms using the change management process.
- D. Review the requirements for service availability against the data collection and measurement currently provided by the IT teams. Design availability metrics and controls to report any variances at the monthly service review meetings, as well as how these variances will be addressed in the future. Internal IT staff and a customer manager will attend the service review meetings. All changes have to be agreed in the service review meetings before any actions can be performed, thus forcing the customer to come to the meetings and reach agreement before any improvement work or change can occur.
Answer:
C
Question 12
Scenario
A company provides an internet-based gift delivery service which is highly dependent upon IT services provided by the
internal IT organization. A year ago the customer payments service that supports the gift ordering website regularly
experienced poor availability. The organization hired a service management consultant to assess why the IT services were
performing poorly and to rectify the situation.
As part of the solution, the consultant implemented service level management and adopted the role of interim service level
manager. Service level agreements were negotiated with the business and agreed. The necessary underpinning agreements
were negotiated and put in place. Regular monitoring and reporting was implemented. Monthly service review meetings with
the business unit managers were established to discuss IT service performance and any issues and improvements. Within a
year of the start of the initiative the gift ordering website IT service was performing at 98.7% availability, a significant
improvement.
This month's service review meeting was attended by the chief executive officer (CEO) after concerns were expressed about
the most recent availability figure for the customer payments service, which was 94%. This covered the period which
included one of the traditionally most popular gift ordering times. The consultant stated that the poor availability was almost
entirely due to an incident that occurred during one of the busiest periods and. as a result, the overall monthly availability
percentage was low. Initial investigation has shown that the service desk used the SLA to designate the incident as a
'Priority 2'. This was however lower than the 'Priority 1" the business believed the incident should have been. The
subsequent delay in restoration of the service meant some customer orders were lost.
The CEO reminded the consultant that a repeat of such an incident would not only have a major effect on monthly revenues
but also seriously affect the company's reputation. The consultant agreed that this was unacceptable and committed to
review this issue and report back to the CEO.
Refer to Scenario
- A. The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a service improvement plan (SIP) to address the issue. Differing views relating to the cause of the low availability mean it should be investigated thoroughly to establish whether the slow restoration of service was due to a lack of understanding by the service desk, incorrect service level targets in the SLA or simply that, owing to the type of failure, restoration was always going to take that length of time. Appropriate action can then be taken to rectify the issue.
- B. The issue is with the service desk and its incorrect interpretation of the SLA and failure to escalate the issues. The SLM should agree to set up a SIP for the service desk. The operational level agreement (OLA) with the service desk should be reviewed to ensure that it underpins the SLAs. The SIP should include the retraining of the service desk staff. A complete review of the service desk tools should ensure that they can be used to prioritize incidents correctly by passing through targets agreed into the priority matrix of the toolset.
- C. The issue is clearly a breakdown in understanding regarding the critical business periods and the matching of these to the availability targets in the SLAs. The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a SIP to investigate the issue. The SLAs should be reviewed with the business to ensure that they match with the business needs and, if necessary are updated. Review and update any underpinning agreements as necessary to ensure that they support the targets in the SLAs.
- D. The SLM should conduct an investigation by reviewing incidents and problems. Ask the IT service desk and support staff what ideas they have to resolve the issue. Review the impact on all other SLAs. OLAs contracts and procedures. Review the maturity associated with the service level management process and take steps to improve this process if necessary. Create a SIP with an associated business case for presentation to the chief executive officer (CEO).
Answer:
A
Question 13
Scenario
An IT security company provides secure data services to many large financial organizations in several countries. The
company has an administrative headquarters in its home country and a data centre in each country of operation.
Each data centre obtains support for services from third-party contracts provided by a number of suppliers. All supporting
services are scoped and documented, and are aligned to the corporate strategy and the regulations in force in each country.
The security services company maintains and regularly reviews a preferred supplier list from which suppliers are selected as
required.
A service desk function is provided by one of the suppliers. Over the last 10 years, a strong relationship has been built up
with the supplier based on the high-quality, consistent service they have provided. The nature of the financial business
requires the service desk contract to contain severe penalty clauses that can be enforced if the agreed service levels are not
maintained, although these have never been required.
A number of complaints have been received from a new banking customer highlighting that, over the previous three months,
the level of service provided by the service desk in the management and handling of incidents has been inconsistent, and
many incidents have not been resolved in line with agreed targets.
The IT security company has a service level manager who has performed the role for many years. Recently, a new supplier
management process was implemented and a supplier manager appointed. Some confusion has arisen over how, and by
whom, the recent complaints should be dealt with.
Refer to the Scenario.
You have been asked to resolve the confusion over the service level manager and supplier manager roles. Which one of the
following options BEST represents the correct division of responsibilities and will also address the current complaints
regarding the service desk supplier?
- A. Service level manager: Apologize to the customer and compensate them financially for the poor service levels. Assure them that, under the terms and conditions of the contract, a review with the service desk will be carried out and that the supplier will be strictly monitored against agreed targets and penalties imposed, potentially leading to contract termination. Carry out a risk analysis of the supplier and their contract. Supplier manager: Log the complaints. Set up a review of the supplier and the service desk function. Invoke the contracts penalty clause to recover compensation from the supplier. Increase the suppliers risk rating. Initiate a service improvement plan in conjunction with continual service improvement.
- B. Service level manager: Log the complaints. Inform the customer that the complaints will be reviewed as a matter of urgency. Collect evidence of failures and pass to the supplier manager. Ensure that the complaints are dealt with efficiently and effectively and improvements are initiated where appropriate. Keep the customer informed of both progress and outcome. Supplier manager: Arrange a meeting with service desk supplier to investigate the complaints. Review performance of the supplier for all the services they deliver to the companys customers. Report findings back to service level manager.
- C. Service level manager: Log the complaints. Inform the customer that the complaints will be discussed with the supplier at the next scheduled review meeting. Assure the customer that the contractual disputes process will be invoked to ensure that the complaints are dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. Inform the customer of the actions taken. Supplier manager: Discuss the complaints with the supplier at the next review meeting Initiate the dispute process with the supplier. Carry out a risk analysis of the supplier and their contract.
- D. Service level manager: Inform the customer that the complaints will be reviewed as a matter of urgency. Assure the customer that a disputes process is in place to ensure that the complaints are dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. Inform the customer that they will be updated on the outcome. Review performance of the supplier for all the services they deliver to the companys customers. Supplier manager: Log the complaints. Quickly arrange a meeting with service desk supplier to investigate the complaints. If necessary, initiate the dispute process.
Answer:
B
Question 14
Scenario
A financial services organization has undergone a period of rapid expansion. From its operating base it has expanded to
serve customers in over 25 countries spread around the globe. There are plans to enter more markets in the next 12 months.
The key stakeholders involved in the global expansion project have briefed the chief information officer (CIO) on the plans.
They have identified IT service performance as one of the major threats to the plan. The CIO has been under pressure from
the board due to poor IT service performance in the previous six months. The chief concern has been significant
performance variations in network connectivity and communications.
The organization currently has three contracts with different local external suppliers in operating markets supporting three IT
network hubs. Whilst the suppliers are all happy to follow local internal IT processes, getting the three to work together on
incidents or changes has proved increasingly difficult.
A number of outages have resulted in a blame culture where even the local internal IT departments have been sympathetic
to their service providers, resulting in strained relationships between these internal departments at an operational level.
Other issues encountered at one or more locations have included:
Long-term service improvements have been sacrificed in favour of short-term fixes that avoid the payment of contract
penalties by the suppliers Changes in ownership of the customer relationship by the suppliers
The CIO believes that a lack of communication between suppliers has been the key cause of failures.
All three supplier contracts are due for renewal in the next 12 months. After consultation, a decision to re-tender for network
services has been taken by IT, and approved by the CIO and the board of directors.
Refer to the Scenario.
When considering suppliers, which one of the following options would BEST ensure that network issues are addressed in
order to meet the needs of the financial services organization?
- A. Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with three local suppliers who have worked together before in similar circumstances. This will ensure both communication and local cultural differences are addressed. Supplier management should have a single, defined local point of ownership with responsibility granted for operational management of issues. The threat of contractual penalties should be removed to encourage suppliers to think longer term about sustainable service improvements. Suppliers will commit to the use of local IT processes to ensure compliance and good communication. Suppliers are to ensure that staff engaged in the contract (in particular the account managers and customer service managers) are fully ITIL trained so they understand and can implement service management best practice disciplines.
- B. Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with a single supplier where mutual trust and a good relationship can be established. Supplier management should have a single, defined point of ownership within each country to manage all local operational issues. A risk-reward framework should be mapped out as an incentive for the supplier to solve local issues. A strategic alignment should be sought with the supplier where values, goals and cultural fit are similar to that of the financial services organization. The supplier should set up its own dedicated global account management team to deal with transition and on-going issues by working with local IT support teams.
- C. Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with a single supplier where mutual trust and a good relationship can be established. Supplier management should have a single, defined point of ownership with local responsibility granted for operational management of issues. A long-term, risk-reward framework should be mapped out to encourage the supplier to work towards sustainable service improvements instead of shorter-term quick fixes. A strategic alignment should be sought with the supplier where values, goals and cultural fit are similar to that of the financial services organization. Implementation of a joint partnership team to initially ensure a smooth transition of the service to the new supplier and to subsequently manage on-going service improvement.
- D. Consideration should be given to re-contracting with the three current local suppliers. There is no suggestion that they are technically incompetent; it appears to be communication and local cultural differences that cause problems. Supplier management should have a single, defined local point of ownership with responsibility granted for operational management of issues. The threat of contractual penalties should be removed to encourage suppliers to think longer term about sustainable service improvements. Communication issues should be addressed by ensuring all incidents are reported to a single global service desk that the financial institution should implement. Suppliers are to ensure that staff engaged in the contract (in particular the account managers and customer service managers) are fully ITIL trained so they understand and can implement service management best practice disciplines.
Answer:
C
Question 15
Refer to Scenario
An IT services company has been providing hosted and managed IT services to a number of major customers for over 20
years. It has invested heavily in ITIL-based service management processes over the last five years, which has resulted in an
increase in the quality of the IT services and an increase in customer satisfaction with the services. This activity has led to a
significant growth in the number of customers that the company serves.
The company has implemented all of the service design, service transition and service operation processes to some extent,
and is now developing other processes based on ITIL service strategy. As a result of this latest activity they have recognized
that their existing service management tool is limited in its ability to support several existing processes, and all of the planned
new ones. The supplier of the existing tool is reducing its investment in future development of the tool and is, therefore,
unwilling to commit to any additional new facilities or functionality. This has now become an issue for the company and, as a
result, they are looking to replace the existing tool with a more comprehensive alternative.
The company plans to develop a requirements specification for the replacement tool and is redwing the areas that need to
be considered, including its deployment throughout the organization. The budget for the new tool is limited, therefore it is
essential that the new tool can be implemented and used as quickly as possible in order to obtain maximum return on
investment (ROI).
Which one of the following options provides the BEST description of the areas that should be addressed by the requirements
specification for the new tool?
- A. The usability and functionality of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the number of customers and users of the services and their geographical locations The plans for the deployment and the associated documentation needed for the tool.
- B. The utility and warranty of the new tool The conformance of the tool to international open standards The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
- C. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The number of potential users of the tool together with the number of licenses and their geographical locations required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool documentation.
- D. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to migrate data from existing tools and to integrate with other tools The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The type and timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
Answer:
D