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ITpreneurs™ Service Management

WORKBOOK

Service Transition release 3.3.0

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ITIL Service Transition, Classroom course

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Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. Please note that the information contained in this material is subject to change without notice. Furthermore, this material contains proprietary information that is protected by copyright.No part of this material may be photocopied, reproduced, ortranslated to another language without the prior consent ofITpreneurs Nederland B.V. The language used in this course is US English. Our sources ofreference for grammar, syntax, and mechanics are from The Chicago Manual of Style, The American Heritage Dictionary, andthe Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications.

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Contents

i

LIST OF ICONS III

LIST OF ACTIVITIES IV

GENERAL TRAINING TIPS NA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VII

FOLLOW US NA

UNIT 2: SERVICE TRANSITION PRINCIPLES 1

2.5 Group/Individual Exercise 2

2.6 Sample Test Question 3

UNIT 3: SERVICE TRANSITION PROCESSES — PART 1 4

3.1.5 Triggers, Inputs, Outputs, and Interfaces 5

3.2.3 Policies, Principles, and Basic Concepts 5

3.2.4 Process Activities, Methods, and Techniques 7






4.1.6 CSFs and KPIs 13


4.2.5 Trigger, Inputs, Outputs, and Interfaces 17





4.5 Sample Test Questions 23




5.1.7 CSFs and KPIs 31




5.4 Sample Test Questions 37

ii

UNIT 6: MANAGING PEOPLE THROUGH SERVICE TRANSITION 40

6.2 Managing Communications and Commitment 41

6.3.1 Organizational and Service Transition Roles and Responsibilities 42

6.3.2 Planning and Implementing Organizational Change 43

6.3.5 Methods, Practices, and Techniques used to Manage Change 44

6.4 Stakeholder Management 45

6.5 Group/Individual Exercises 45


UNIT 7:ORGANIZING FOR SERVICE TRANSITION 51

7.4.2 Specific Roles 52



UNIT 8: TECHNOLOGY CONSIDERATIONS 57

8.1.3 Collaboration 58

8.1.4 Configuration Management System 59



UNIT 9: IMPLEMENTING AND IMPROVING SERVICE TRANSITION 62



UNIT 10: CHALLENGES, CSFs, AND RISKS 66

10.4 Service Transition Under Difficult Conditions 67

UNIT 11: EXAM PREPARATION GUIDE NA

APPENDIX A: CASE STUDY 68

APPENDIX B: MIND MAP EXCERCISE (REFER TO STUDENT REFERENCE MATERIAL) NA

APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY (REFER TO STUDENT REFERENCE MATERIAL) NA

APPENDIX D: SYLLABUS (REFER TO STUDENT REFERENCE MATERIAL) NA

APPENDIX E: ANSWERS 81

APPENDIX F: DIAGRAMS (MACRO VIEW) (REFER TO STUDENT REFERENCE MATERIAL) NA

APPENDIX G: RELEASE NOTES (REFER TO STUDENT REFERENCE MATERIAL) NA

STUDENT FEEDBACK FORM NA

RELEASE NOTES 157

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. iii

LIST OF ICONS

Refers to content that is meant for the instructor to lecture in class

Refers to content that is meant for the student to read on his/her own in class or at home

Refers to information items that are not covered by the instructor in class but help the student understand a particular topic in detail

Refers to a Scenario-Based Activity that the student must do in class or as homework after the completion of a topic or in between a topic

Refers to items or contents that are given in a step-by-step-instruction or checklist format

Refers to an important snippet of information that the instructors should remember to touch upon while conducting an activity or during a lecture

Refers to the simplification of content that was previously difficult to understand or confusing

Refers to an extra piece of information that is not very important but still good to know

Refers to light, conversational snippets of information or that the instructor can use in class to break the monotony of a serious and tedious lecture

Refers to general-knowledge-based information that the instructor can use to provide relief to students during a serious or tedious classroom lecture

Refers to space for the students to take notes

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved.iv

LIST OF ACTIVITIES

This course uses a variety of delivery techniques. Each of these techniques is designed to help students not only learn the material but also apply the information. The various techniques used are:

Activity

DescriptionGenerally, the instructor asks students to fill up a blank diagram or to answer given questions in their Workbook.

Brainstorm

DescriptionThis promotes collaborative learning, where the group is encouraged to offer up ideas without analysis and to then finalize the solution after brainstorming.

Compare and Contrast

DescriptionThe class compares and lists the similarities and differences between two concepts or processes.

Concept Jog

DescriptionThe instructor asks a “Rapid-Fire” round of questions to students. The instructor and students discuss the answers in 2 minutes.

Critical Thinking

DescriptionThe students think about a given question(s), write their responses, and present their views in class.

Discussion

DescriptionThe instructor poses questions to guide the students through complex subjects. The discussion assists the students in comprehending complicated topics.

Lecture

DescriptionThis is a traditional method of instruction but is done from the Instructor Guide, not from the PowerPoint presentation. The students are encouraged to follow along in their Student Reference Materials.

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. v

Mind Map

DescriptionThe class draws a stepwise list of activities/phases/functions or web of content, for example, processes, functions, activities, steps, and so on. The idea is to map one idea in relation to other ideas, to understand whether or not the students have understood a concept properly.

Recall, Describe, and List

DescriptionThe class lists as many ideas on or the key points of a previously learned topic, either in the Foundations course or through the course materials.

Role-Play

DescriptionThe instructor and the students play different roles. The instructor assigns roles to the students based on real-life situations/problems and asks them to act out their roles in a problem situation. The students give their views of/solutions to the situation/problem, per the specific roles assigned to them. Role-reversal can also take place where the students act as the instructor and teach the class.

Round-Robin

DescriptionThis is similar to a discussion, except that the conversation goes from one student to the next, and each student must offer up an idea or a concept.

Scenario

DescriptionReal-world cases are used to provide context to apply the ITIL framework. These are particularly valuable when the students are developing a consultative view of a situation and selecting what aspect of ITIL will meet the needs of the scenario.

Self-Study

DescriptionThis is usually used for supplemental material after a topic has been covered. It is also used to create diversification of teaching techniques in order to keep students engaged.

Solve a Common Problem/Risk Mitigation

DescriptionThe class is divided into two groups. Each group notes down a brief, “topic-related” problem. The groups then quiz each other about “how to solve” the given problem.

Teach-Back

DescriptionThis encourages greater retention of topics through self-study and preparation, to teach the concepts back to fellow classmates. The instructor plays a key role to ensure that the teach-back session reflects the appropriate content.

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved.vi

The Big “Why”

DescriptionThe instructor asks “The Big ‘Why’” questions to introduce a <concept/topic/idea> to class. The instructor conducts this activity in a conversational or less formal manner and provides a gist of the entire course/topic(s)/subtopic(s).

Think-Pair-Share

DescriptionThe instructor asks the class a question. The students then pair up with a partner to compare or discuss their responses. The instructor calls randomly on a few students to summarize their discussion or give their answer.

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. vii

We would like to sincerely thank the experts who have contributed to and shaped ITpreneurs’ ITIL Intermediate product suite.

ITpreneurs’ Course Reviewers Anessi, Ray - Pangloss Group

Costigan, Michael D - CSC

Mohr, Julie - Blue Print Audits

Vikdal, Mike - Independent

Wigmore, Michael - Independent

Per Ivar Lillebraten - Ciber

Fatih Celen - Impetus Consulting

Jordon, Cazzy - General Dynamics Information Technology

ITpreneurs’ Course Exercise Writers

Foederer, Marcel - ITpreneurs

Mohr, Julie - Blue Print Audits

Vikdal, Mike - Independent

Wigmore, Michael - Independent

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. 1

Unit2Service Transition Principles

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved.2

ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Service Transition

2.5 GROUP/INDIVIDUAL EXERCISE

The Royal has some existing corporate rules. Quite a few groups have a stake in changed Services as well as different groups internal to IT. The Royal is increasingly dependent on IT to support the Services that it offers, and it has decided to adopt the ITIL version 3 approach of having a Service Transition phase for each Service Change. It sensibly decides to come up with a set of policies for Service Transition.

You need to decide what should be in each policy, and think about what best practices might be appropriate for each policy.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Given the Royal’s corporate and service management policies outlined in the scenario and the

ITIL guidance, recommend (i.e., draft) some service transition policies that would be appropriate to the Royal. Defend your recommendations.

Write your answer in the space provided.

Answer:


Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Service Transition Principles

2.6 SAMPLE TEST QUESTION

Manudyn, a manufacturing company, wants to put policies in place for Service Transition. Manudyn has 200 people in IT, and has previously implemented the following processes of ITIL version 2: Incident, Problem, Change, and Configuration. Release Management was designed, but no comprehensive tool support was put in place. Release Management is primarily done by application development.

You are the newly appointed manager of Service Transition. You know that the concept of having a separate Lifecycle phase for transition is new to Manudyn. You want to do the right thing, but you are not sure how to proceed.

Manudyn has been doing quite a few of the activities of Service Transition in the past, but not always executed them very well. Here are some facts about Service Transition at Manudyn:

Change has been done quite well, but in a variety of ways. The enterprise has always done a diligent job of testing, although on occasion, the tests were done by the same people who built the Release in the development environment. This caused issues later because some conditions were not tested for, and the production environment was sufficiently different from the development environment to render some of the test incomplete.

When using a 3rd party provider, there was confusion about who was doing what and when they were doing it, causing deadlines to be missed.

On occasion, IT has completed a rollout only to find that the users of a Release were not ready to use it from a business-timing point of view. Sometimes, the users of a Release were ready, but found they didn’t know how to use the Service.

When new Services are to be released, the Service Desk often did not know how to handle issues.

Q1. Which of the following options is your best course of action to get policies in place?

a) You know that policies are necessary to get the work of Service Transition done. You also know that there are 14 different policy areas, which seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn. To make progress, you decide to choose the most important of the policies and draft a document on that basis. You know that the CFO has some opinions on financial policies so you decide to get his input. Your strategy is to enlist the CIO so that the policies can be enacted at the next meeting where Service Transition is discussed.

b) You know that the CEO is a tough sell on anything that customers do not see. He is known to be unpredictable, so you do not want to put the CIO in the position where his veto will cause him loss of face. If you keep a tight grip on the activities of Service Transition, you know you can run it efficiently and effectively. You plan to keep your eye on delivering outcomes by reducing Risks and containing costs, and as long as you do that, only minimal policies are required. You will work these out as they become necessary.

c) You know that policies are necessary to get the work of Service Transition done. The number of policy areas is extensive, and seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn. To make progress, you decide to choose the most important of the policies and draft a document on that basis. You know that the CFO has some opinions on financial policies so you decide to get his input. You need to ensure there is a policy about having a single process that everyone uses, and you should get concurrence from stakeholders on this point. Your strategy is to enlist the CIO so that the policies can be enacted at the next meeting where Service Transition is discussed.

d) You know that policies are necessary to getting the work of Service Transition done. You also know that there are 14 different policy areas, which seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn.


Unit3Service Transition Processes — Part 1

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Service Transition Processes — Part 1


3.1.5 TRIGGERS, INPUTS, OUTPUTS, AND INTERFACES

ActivityQ1. List the trigger, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of Service Transition.


Answer:

3.2.3 POLICIES, PRINCIPLES, AND BASIC CONCEPTS

ActivityQ1. Complete the table given in your Workbook by explaining the key Change Evaluation terms.

Write your answer in the given table.

Answer:

Terms Definition

Service Change

SDP

Performance

Performance model



Terms Definition

Predicted performance

Actual performance

Deviations report

Risk

Countermeasure

Test plan and results

Residual Risk

Service capability

Capacity

Constraint

Resource

Change Evaluation plan

Change Evaluation report



3.2.4 PROCESS ACTIVITIES, METHODS, AND TECHNIQUES

ActivityQ1. Complete the blank fields in the Change Evaluation process workflow outline given below.

Change evaluation process flowBased on AXELOS ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS.


ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the Change Evaluation process.


Answer:




James, with Harry’s approval, is considering buying another hotel and merging the two. There would be a new merged IT organization that could take advantage of the situation to implement Service Transition appropriately.

You have interviewed the IT department of the two hotels and have made the following notes on each:

1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of CAB members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.

2. The hotel being considered for the merger

As in the Royal, there is little control over resources to execute transition. Roles in transition are clear but different from those in the Royal. Change is also done quite well, but with four levels of authorization supported by three categories of Changes. The hotel has a small number of standard Changes. Similar to the Royal, the sentiment is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Head of Operations. Asset Management is done, and the asset register is used for Configuration Management. No audits are done apart from what the Asset Management people find as they execute their tasks. This has sometimes led to extended Service restoration times. Release is essentially done by Application Development, and operations testing is done just before the Release goes into production. Training is done well, and the Service Desk is usually briefed on new Releases. Again, no attention is given to the retirement of assets when a new Release is implemented. The performance and availability of Services have been less than expected when going live on a number of occasions. There have been instances where IT thought that the level of performance was not critical, and so did not do rigorous testing. This resulted in a loss of revenue for the business. Reports from all areas of transition are produced regularly and are in tabular form, providing all the detail that the management could want to see.



Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Imagine that you are an ITSM consultant of the hotel. Highlight the areas of greatest concern

that need to be addressed.


Answer:




ActivityQ1. Describe the Change Management process from the initiation of a Change Request.


Answer:




ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, and outputs of the Change Management process.


Answer:

Triggers Inputs Outputs



4.1.6 CSFs AND KPIs

ActivityQ1. Describe the following KPIs:


Answer:

KPIs Description

Objective KPIs

Subjective KPIs

Quality KPIs

O r g a n i z a t i o n a l KPIs



Q2. Give examples of each KPI from your organization.


Answer:

Q3. Which is the most important KPI and what happens if a KPI does not meet its target?


Answer:




Activity Q1. What are CIs?


Answer:



Q2. What are the different categories of CIs?


Answer:

The different categories of CIs are:

CIs Descriptions



4.2.5 TRIGGER, INPUTS, OUTPUTS, AND INTERFACES

ActivityQ1. List the trigger, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the SACM process.


Answer:

Trigger Inputs Interfaces




The Royal’s Service Desk restores Services for users by solving Incidents. It wants to use a database to help in this. In the database, the Service Desk needs to see old Incidents to be able to perform Incident matching. The Service Desk Manager would like more help than this, by having a system that could proactively suggest resolutions for Incidents. The Service Desk Manager also wants to see trend reports for the number of Incidents. The Service Desk Manager also has some responsibilities related to the provisioning of PCs to hotel staff, and finds there is confusion about which PCs have which software installed. Consequently, the Royal’s management is nervous about passing an audit if one were conducted on software use. The Service Desk Manager would like to get Capacity Management to be able to predict the usage of file and print servers, which the Service Desk manager is also responsible for – and their use is growing fast! Actually, he would like to automate this activity so that he could easily identify when an upgrade would be required. He believes there is enough experience in the organization to allow this.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. In the scenario, apply the DIKW model to the different elements mentioned. (Refer to the

DIKW diagram in the Reference Material.)


Answer:



Q2. Which elements are being used in the scenario? (Refer to the diagram of the CMS in the Reference Material.)


Answer:


Continuing with the scenario in Topic 4.3.3, the people at the Royal who are executing the Knowledge Management process have implemented an SKMS. They now need to introduce it to the Service Desk staff.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. What methods can be used to train the Service Desk staff? What methods can be used to

accommodate different learning styles?


Answer:



Q2. What are some ways that information can be represented beyond textual presentation?


Answer:

Q3. How can you ensure that you get the Service Desk staff to use the SKMS?


Answer:



Q4. As the SKMS evolves and other groups in the hotel start to use it, what vehicles can you use to spread the word, provide new information on the SKMS, and so on?


Answer:


ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of Knowledge Management.


Answer:






1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of CAB members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.








Answer:

4.5 SAMPLE TEST QUESTIONS

A large manufacturing organization has offices at multiple locations across North America and Europe. A new Change Management process has been in place for the last 6 months. This process consolidates the disparate Change Management processes at the different locations. Things have been going well, with reports showing that all the KPIs are within their expected ranges.

Change Management policies were put in place as part of the overall design. They are:

y There is zero tolerance for unauthorized Change.

y The Change Management process must be aligned with business needs.

y Accountability and responsibility for Changes must be assigned.

y Duty controls must be segregated, that is, build and test.

y There will be a single focal point for Changes.

y Evaluating the Risk of all Changes that Impact Service capability will drive the level of authorization required.



y People who are not authorized to make a Change will not have access to the production environment.

y Change Management will integrate with other Service Management processes to establish the traceability of Change, detect unauthorized Change, and identify Change-related Incidents.

y Change windows will be enforced.

The new Change Management system was set up with an elaborate authorization process that involved four authorization levels. A scheme was set up to categorize Changes into eight Risk levels, and the Risk level mapped the Change to the appropriate authorization level. There was a lot of in-fighting about what constituted which Risk level, but all stakeholders eventually agreed to the scheme and signed off on it. The higher the Risk and, consequently, the authority level signoff, the longer the process takes because the “higher authority” consists of higher-level roles in the organization.

In the last 2 weeks, the organization has started to complain that critical business changes are taking too long to implement, leading to business loss. As the process manager, you are responsible for investigating this issue and coming up with a solution.

Q1. What should you do?

a) You recall that the policies state that the process must be aligned with business needs. Clearly, to eliminate lost business, something must be done to the process. You decide that if Risk is automatically reduced for business changes, this will mean that the authorization level is lower, leading to a faster turnaround time. You immediately institute this Change to the process.

b) You engage with the business to find out the nature of the Changes that are not taking place in a timely way. You suspect that some Changes could be recategorized as standard Changes, eliminating any delays. In addition, you want to ensure that Risks are correctly assessed because overestimating the Risk will slow down the implementation of Changes. For example, the business need might override the IT perspective, but this might not be reflected in the Risk calculation.

c) You decide to change the reporting structure so that you can better see if the Risk to authority level mapping is working, that approvals are happening in a timely way, and that the implementation is happening on schedule. You schedule a meeting after 4 weeks to discuss the results of the investigation with the stakeholders to see if any adjustments are required for the process. You know that you should never change a process without measurement data to justify it.

d) You think the mapping of Risk to authority level is working well. The problem is the turnaround time of the people who have to sign off the Change. You find out which individuals are holding up authorization, and let them know that if they cannot respond in a timely way, they will have to be removed from the authorization list.

You are the SACM Manager. The CIO comes to you to tell you he is about to cancel the project to create a CMS. This is because he was recently at a conference where he discussed the project with his peers who strongly advised him not to go ahead. Their experience, which seemed to have been gained over several years, was that this type of project was a drain on money and resources.

Several other CIOs recognized that the overall concept was good. To serve the organization well and improve the image of Service Management, they invited some other stakeholders, such as Application Development, to the table to cover their needs as well.

You are somewhat alarmed to hear this because you have already asked the business for its requirements. As a result, the project is on their radar now, and the CIO would not want to disappoint the stakeholders.



Your organization has an inviolable principle, which is that each project over a specific dollar threshold must demonstrate, through metrics, an ROI within a year. This is another factor that is causing the CIO to doubt the prudence of starting the CMS project.

In all fairness, the CIO has given you a week to come up with reasons not to cancel the project and a plan to be followed if he agrees not to cancel it.

Q1. What do you do?

a) Far from scaling back your plan, you initiate an immediate exercise to sell the CMS to as many stakeholders as you can. You feel that you need to overpower the objection by getting potential stakeholders to quantify the benefits of a CMS and give you input that will help answer the ROI question. Naturally, you will provide the CMDB with relationships as part of what you deliver; it would not be a CMS without one!

b) Scale down your plan to use an existing asset register to give the functionality of a CMDB. You suggest that this be done quietly, so that no other potential stakeholders try to influence the project. This option will give immediate results because using an asset register as a CMDB will allow Changes to be logged against the CIs as well as Incidents, Problems, and so on. In your heart, you know that this will provide huge benefits to IT. Additionally, you believe that the budget for this scaled-down project will be under the dollar limit where projects have to show an ROI within a year.

c) Scale down your plan to use an existing asset register to give the functionality of a CMDB, but also plan to implement relationships and CIs that define Services, applications, and so on. You have an outline plan to investigate the cost of outages in the last year and extrapolate how much would be saved by having a CMDB that is able to show Impacts through relationships, for both Change Management and Incident Management. You also feel that you should be able to provide the business with a dashboard that shows the health of the Services. You would do this by displaying the CIs that constitute a Service and its relationships. This will help ensure that the business is not disappointed with the project.

d) Frankly, you have been reading about some horrible situations where everything the CIO said is true. You decide not to fight a losing battle, and figure out ways to redeploy your staff so that at least your political potency will not be impacted when the axe falls.

Knowledge Management has been implemented at A to Z Corporation for 6 months. A to Z is a leading engineering company with a great deal of the technical information needed for a variety of tasks residing in different groups. A lot of effort went into determining how knowledge could be captured, and the concept of Knowledge Engineers was introduced. The people given this role had a roaming brief to find pockets of knowledge within the corporation, which they would then “extract” and codify into the SKMS. The extraction process involved interviews that would cut into the working day of people, often putting them behind in their engineering projects. This caused some resentment toward the project.

The Knowledge Manager found that KPIs for Knowledge Management are not easy to implement. For the first 4 months, the principal KPI – the number of SKMS accesses – was trending up very satisfactorily. This was attributed to information being put into the SKMS and information being found by users seeking answers. In the fifth month, the KPI dipped markedly, but this was attributed to two things:

y Most Knowledge Engineers were reassigned to other jobs.

y Users who had benefitted from the information in the SKMS in the previous 4 months did not need to access the information because they had retained it from their previous access.

An area of focus was the use of the SKMS by IT itself. IT embraced the concept of the SKMS and populated it with a large number of Workarounds, Standard Operating Procedures, and so on. A survey of the Service Desk found that its use of the SKMS was increasing, and that it was delighted with Knowledge Management.



It is, consequently, a shock to hear from the CIO that he was publicly humiliated at this morning’s executive meeting by the VP of Engineering’s assessment that Knowledge Management had been a complete waste of his people’s time, and that the engineering project slippage was the fault of IT.

Q1. What do you think was the Problem, and what should be the course of action?

a) There is no fundamental problem with the implementation of Knowledge Management. The SKMS was obviously very useful to people, as indicated by the number of accesses. It’s typical for engineering to find someone else to blame when it starts to fall behind on projects, so it’s not really a surprise that engineering now blames IT. The CIO needs to push back more and reference the fact that the Service Desk finds the SKMS incredibly useful.

b) To make what is wrong with Knowledge Management clearer, a user survey should be conducted. This will determine the issues that users have with the SKMS, perhaps revealing a lack of DIKW modeling and, consequently, diminishing the effectiveness of the SKMS. The survey will also reveal any training issues that users have, enabling new training courses, WebEX sessions, FAQs, and so on to be developed.

c) It’s pretty clear that the process must somehow be faulty. The DIKW model might not have been implemented correctly by Knowledge Engineers. So, users are not finding value in using the SKMS, which is why usage is dropping. Initiating a redesign of the process will ensure that DIKW is performed appropriately. Then everyone, including engineering, will see the benefits of Knowledge Management.

d) You should engage with the management to ensure that the objectives of Knowledge Management are understood and agreed. The scope of the original project might have been too broad, and expectations could have been accidentally set by the Knowledge Engineers during their interviews (trying to do too much too soon). Identify stakeholders, determine their requirements, and ensure that they understand and buy into exactly what it is you can deliver with the SKMS. Try to reuse the information that exists in the SKMS to reduce any interaction with the engineering department.




The Royal needs to understand the issues related to implementing Releases.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Complete the following table to show the pros and cons of whether a Release should be big

bang, phased, push, or pull.


Answer:

Design Options Pros Cons

Big bang

Phased

Push

Pull



Q2. Give two reasons why baselines should be used to assist Release and Deployment.


Answer:

Q3. What elements should be in the model?

(Hint: Think about how you know the Release is successful, what infrastructure was used, and so on. You need to build and test the Release, decide what has to be done to pass the Release on to operations, decide on the use of other transition capabilities to execute the build and deployment, and identify who is responsible for individual components of the Release.)


Answer:

Release and Deployment Models




ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the Release and Deployment process.

Write your answer in given table.

Answer:

Triggers Inputs Outputs Interfaces



5.1.7 CSFs AND KPIs

The Royal has to implement a large number of Changes within a short time. Some of the Changes are to correct defects in existing Services while others implement a variety of new types of functionality, ranging from minor improvements to completely new, major additions.

The Release and Deployment process has been neglected, and you need to revamp the approach to Release and Deployment.

The first step is to come up with a way to classify Releases. A Release Unit is defined as that portion of a Service or IT infrastructure that is normally released together.

Scenario-Based Activity 1Q1. Using the given table in your Workbook, come up with a scheme for Release Unit numbering that

distinguishes between the different types of listed Changes and note down the characteristics of each type of Release Unit (include how frequently you would expect Releases of these types).Complete the table by entering each of the following types of Changes in the example column:

y Single Web page update

y Change to Web site navigation at the home page level (highest level of drill down)

y Bug fix to application

y Small enhancement plus bug fixes

y New desktop tool

y New business service


Answer:

Release Unit Numbering Scheme Characteristics Example

Major



Minor

Fix/Emergency

Because the Royal has decided to support Service Transition, it will have to assign some roles to individuals. It should define the main roles and responsibilities at the points of handover to ensure that everyone understands their role and level of authority and those of others involved in the Release and Deployment process.

Scenario-Based Activity 2Q1. Complete the following table to show which of the following roles is important to the releases

and what roles they would be responsible for.

The releases are:

y A release to implement self-service kiosks for guests so they can book massages, spa visits, and so on

y A release to modify the existing hotel Web site to include the same capability of the kiosks but through a guest’s PC

y A release to update special offers on the hotel Web site (altering Web pages directly has proven to be error prone, so a small Service has been created to make it easy and secure to change this part of the Web site)

y A release to update the local tax rates on hotel rooms (this has to be done to comply with tax laws)

y A release to apply fixes to Problems found in the worldwide install base of the accounting package used at the Royal

The roles are:

y Development Manager

y Kiosk Infrastructure Manager

y Kiosk Software Manager (outsourced)

y Operations Manager

y Change Manager



y Test Manager

y Service Desk Manager

y Database Administrator


Answer:

Development Controlled Test

Release to Production Production

Object Released from Accepted by Authority to release to live

Accepted and supported by

Kiosk service

Web site functional improvement (extra Service bookings via PC)


The Royal has been using a ticket-booking service, called EZtiks, as part of its strategy to use kiosks to provide new Services to its guests. EZtiks runs on the Royal’s kiosks, is branded for the Royal, and does all the processing. The Royal gets a cut of each ticket sale made through EZtiks.

A large change to EZtiks is coming up. The Change to the Service involves some “excitement factors,” such as the chance to get your order free through a “lottery,” which EZtiks feels should attract customers and differentiate its Service from that of other ticket-booking agencies. EZtiks has been implementing Service Design for the past few months. Because customers will be using the ticket-booking Service directly, EZtiks’ management is nervous about the usability of the Service. The management realizes that customers such as the Royal can switch to another ticket-booking agency, so it wants the Change to be smooth.

The suspicion is that there will be quite an increase in the workload of EZtik’s Service Desk because of the new Service. Response time will be critical, so to keep a check on it, monitoring needs to be changed. While there has been a lot of work to understand the popularity of the new Service, there is a level of nervousness about whether the Service will be responsive when many users try to book tickets simultaneously.

When there is trouble with the new Service, it is not clear who will deal with it within the EZtiks organization (expertise



and human resources). EZtiks’ management also wants to know if it can respond to trouble calls in a timely way.

Finally, EZtiks’ finance department is wondering if the new Service will make money. Particularly, it needs to know how many free tickets EZtiks can afford to give away — this will be driven in part by the cost of the Service itself.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. For each of the test models given in the following table, give an example of where it could be

used in the scenario, and invent a test condition and test mechanism to perform the test. As an example, one has been completed for you.

Level of Test Service V-Model Level Test Condition Test Mechanism

Service contract test

Service requirements test

Service test Level 1 – customer/business needs Budget within target Financial reporting

Service level test

Operations test




ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the Service Validation and Testing process.


Answer:

Triggers Inputs Outputs Inter-process Interfaces






1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of Change Advisory Board (CAB) members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.








Answer:


A new entrant in the Internet concert-ticket-booking business has been adding Services to its portfolio aggressively. The business has been growing steadily since it added the functionality of a “lottery,” where customers stand a chance to get their tickets for free. However, the Release did not go smoothly because there were usability issues — statistics showed that a larger-than-anticipated number of users did not complete their transactions — and response time degraded alarmingly under load. Fortunately, the load never climbed to a point where everything stopped; it was just responsive enough for customers to complete their purchases.

A new initiative is now being put forward. When there is a “hot” ticket, the front-of-the-line functionality will allow customers to opt to pay more and be serviced ahead of those not wishing to pay a premium. The Release will also include some minor usability enhancements to the existing ticket service, as well as a fairly significant extension that allows tickets to be purchased at a cinema. The interface has to be altered to fit the kiosk format — screen and print — but the back-end processing is the same. Because the company does not have kiosk coding expertise, they contracted out some of the interface programming to an offshore company.



Two weeks before the release is due to be deployed, testing reveals that the kiosk functionality is not reliable. The Problem seems to be in the outsourced kiosk coding, but the offshore company is blaming it on incorrect levels of the Java Virtual Machine on the kiosks. In field trials, kiosk ticket purchases were completed within the planned time in 85% of the cases. However, on retrying, all worked successfully.

The entire Release, that is, all the components mentioned above, has been tested using the Service V-Model. Now, it appears that it cannot go ahead.

You are the Release and Deployment Manager.


a) Recommend that the Release be split up into components and retested. The business needs the front-of-the-line functionality to maintain its competitive edge, but ticket ordering is too risky because 85% availability is too low. Ensure that SPI testing is done extensively when the kiosk functionality is ready for Release. This is because the experience with the offshore developer might indicate that its responsiveness to Problems might not be very good.

b) Check that all the tests were in accordance with the Service V-Model, particularly the SPI to show that due diligence had been performed. Initiate an immediate inquiry to see how long it will take to check the level of the Java Virtual Machine on all the kiosks. It might be possible to include an update to that component in the Release.

c) Stop the Release from being deployed. The finger-pointing by the offshore developer must be dealt with because support is clearly lacking. Enough time to test the Release is not available, so if in doubt, go back to square 1 and start over.

d) While there is no reason why the front-of-the-line functionality cannot be released because the testing was done in conjunction with that of all other components, there is a possibility that some dependencies will not be apparent. So, the new Release Package needs to be retested. With respect to the failure of the kiosk functionality tests, get the input of the business immediately. While 85% availability is low in IT terms, only the business can judge whether it is acceptable.

A dispute has arisen in the IT department.

The output of Service Design is the SDP, which contains many details related to the transition and operation of a new or changed Service. Some of the components of the transition of the SDP are:

y Build policies, plans, and requirements, including Service and component build plans, specifications, controls and environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms, including platforms

y Testing policy, plans, and requirements, including test environments, technologies, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms

y Testing, which must include:

o Functional testing

o Component testing, including all suppliers, contracts, and externally provided supporting products and Services

o User acceptance and usability testing

o System compatibility and integration testing

o Service and component performance and capacity testing



o Resilience and continuity testing

o Failure, alarm, and event categorization, processing, and testing

o Service and component security and integrity testing

o Logistics, Release, and distribution testing

o Management testing, including control, monitoring, measuring, and reporting, together with backup, recovery, and batch scheduling and processing

y Deployment policy, Release policy, plans, and requirements, including logistics, deployment, roll-out, staging, deployment environments, cultural change, organizational change, technology, tools, processes, approaches, methods, and mechanisms, including all platforms, knowledge, skills, and competence transfer and development, supplier and contract transition, and data migration and conversion

The organization has appointed a manager for each of the following: Release and Deployment, Service Validation and Testing, and Evaluation. Each wants to have first access to the SDP when it becomes available to Service Transition. The IT Director does not know how to handle this situation. You are an ITIL consultant on contract with the organization.

Q1. What advice do you offer?

a) The Service Transition part of the SDP is written by staff working in Transition. The Release and Deployment Manager should attend to the build policy, plans, and requirements, including Service and component build plans, specifications, controls and environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms, including all platforms. The Service Testing and Validation Manager should attend to the testing policy, plans, and requirements, including test environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms. Testing must include such items as functional testing, component testing — including all suppliers, contracts, and externally provided supporting products and Services; user acceptance and usability testing, system compatibility and integration testing, and so on. The Evaluation Manager should set stakeholder expectations correctly and provide effective and accurate information to Change Management to make sure that Changes that adversely affect Service capability and introduce Risk are not transitioned unchecked. Each manager should work with his/her team to develop the appropriate section of the SDP, and these efforts should be in parallel.

b) The Release and Deployment Manager should receive the SDP first. This is because the build has to precede any testing, and in any case, by definition, building the test environments is part of Release and Deployment Management. Release and Deployment Management needs a head start so that everything is ready for testing.

c) The Release and Deployment Manager and the Service Validation and Test Manager should receive the SDP at the same time but before the Evaluation Manager needs to see it. This is because while build has to precede any testing, building the test environments and test scripts can proceed in parallel with the build. Evaluation occurs after the Service is live, so the process definitely does not need the SDP first.

d) If any of the managers should see the SDP first, it should be the Evaluation Manager. This is because Service Design or Service Changes should be evaluated before being transitioned. Consequently, there would be little point in investing time and effort in Release and Deployment and Service Validation and Testing before evaluating the Service Design or Service Change. The most appropriate solution is to let the three managers see the SDP as it is received from Service Design, because the three processes can work in their own area at the same time.


Unit6Managing People Through

Service Transition

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Managing People Through Service Transition


6.2 MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMITMENT

BrainstormQ1. Discuss the importance of communication during Service Transition.


Answer:

Q2. What are the key elements that you must consider when planning for effective communication?


Answer:



6.3.1 ORGANIZATIONAL AND SERVICE TRANSITION ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

ActivityQ1. Give some examples of key questions that should be posed to help identify the culture of parties

involved in Service Transition.


Answer:

“Cultural aspect Question

Language

Change

Communication

Knowledge flow”

Communities

Networks

Working Environments

History

Meetings

Rewards and motivations

Time”

Quoted text source is ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Copyright © AXELOS Limited 2014. Material is reproduced under license from AXELOS.



6.3.2 PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

BrainstormQ1. List the points that the stakeholders and IT teams involved in Change Management must know

to implement a Change effectively.


Answer:

Q2. List the outputs from the Service Strategy and Service Design Lifecycle stages that might assist in the organizational Change.


Answer:



6.3.5 METHODS, PRACTICES, AND TECHNIQUES USED TO MANAGE CHANGE

Critical ThinkingQ1. Describe the core challenge and desired behavior for each of the leading Change steps mentioned

in the Kotter’s approach to Change table given in your Workbook.

Write your answer in given table

Answer:

“Leading change: eight Steps Core challenge Desired behavior

1. Establish a sense of urgency

2. Create a guiding coalition

3. Develop a vision and strategy

4. Communicate the change vision (and, communicate it over and over again)

5. Empower broad-based action

6. Create short-term wins

7. Consolidate gains and produce more change

8. Anchor new approaches in the culture”




6.4 STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

DiscussionQ1. Who are the stakeholders likely to be affected by Change?


Answer:

6.5 GROUP/INDIVIDUAL EXERCISES

In an earlier exercise, a consultant analyzed a plan to merge the operations of two hotels. The Royal has decided to go ahead and wants to ensure that the organizational Change goes smoothly.

Many people will have to be briefed and prepared for the Change. Also, there are stakeholders who will need very considered handling to ensure that they are happy.

You are the Transition Manager. You must come up with a plan to make the transition a success from an organizational perspective. At this stage, you do not know the “players” from the other hotel, so you begin to plan based on the Royal but realizing that you will need to modify the plan when you know more about the other hotel.



Scenario-Based Activity 1Q1. List some ways that you consider are the most important to convey the message at the Royal.


Answer:

Q2. List some ways that you consider are the most important points that need to be understood about the Change at the Royal.


Answer:



Q3. List some ways that you consider are the most potent to overcome resistance to Change at the Royal.


Answer:

Dealing with stakeholders is a key consideration to ensure that an organizational Change goes well. Harry, James, Dimitri, Pap, Fujiyama-san, Dan, and Isobel are considered key individuals.

The stakeholder map shows the different areas of Service Transition that the various stakeholders are interested in.

Scenario-Based Activity 2Q1. In the table below, map the persons listed above to the stakeholder titles in the column to the

left and write their names in the second column. Then, determine which areas each stakeholder might be interested in


Answer:

Stakeholder Name Strategic Direction Financial Operational

Change

Interface with Customers

Competitive Position

Business ownership Harry




Change

Interface with Customers


Management James

Finance Fujiyama-san

Customers Guests

Project teams Dimitri, Pap

Staff Dan, Isobel

Q2. Refer to the Power Impact matrix and complete the table given below.


Answer:

Type of Involvement People

Key players – need strong buy-in

Active consultation

Maintain interest



Keep informed

Harry is dubious of most new initiatives. He is generally a hands-off person, but is unpredictable and can pull his support at any time. James is the mover and shaker at the Royal, and he initiated the entire idea of buying the other hotel. Fujiyama-san is not only a supporter, but is involved in the project, even outside of finance. Dan and Isobel don’t feel connected to the project. Dimitri and Pap consider the Change business as usual.

Scenario-Based Activity 3Q1. Consider the information given in the scenario, and use it to complete the commitment-planning

chart.


Answer:

Key Player Not Committed No Resistance Helps It Happen Makes It Happen

Business ownership

Management

Finance

Project teams



Staff


The CIO of your company attended a CIO seminar recently. The CIO initiated the implementation of ITIL v2 years ago, and it was hard to get it accepted by the staff.

The company has added a lot more technology to support the Services it offers to its customers, and ITIL has been instrumental in ensuring that IT has not failed when called upon. The effectiveness of ITIL processes is well understood by the CIO, but there really has not been any effort to ensure that the managers and staff understand.

At the seminar, the CIO was given a more in-depth understanding of ITIL version 3 (he had been briefed on it when it was released but not to any significant depth). He thinks that one area that the company can really use is CSI. He feels that if CSI had been in place, everyone would understand the contribution of ITIL to the success of the company as well as ensure that overall improvement was happening as a normal activity.

After careful contemplation, the CIO has decided to initiate an ITIL version 3 initiative. While the result is in no question in his mind, he also realizes that this will entail an organizational Change. He fears that the people who were not in favor earlier may well dig their heels in this time.

You have been brought in as an ITIL version 3 consultant to help get the project started. You explain that while the CIO’s fears are not without foundation, Service Transition provides some guidance on how to deal with organizational Change.

You want to develop a multistage plan to present to the CIO.

Q1. Which of the following options contains the appropriate items?

a) Conduct a survey with the IT people to understand their opinion of ITIL. Devise activities to ensure that all the management is at least at a “helps-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure that all relevant IT managers are at the “maintain-interest” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach HR to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.

b) Hold a kick-off meeting with the senior members of the organizations’ staff. Devise activities to ensure that all the management is at least at a “make-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure all key stakeholders are at a “need-strong-buy-in” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach managers to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.

c) Interview the CEO to get his perspective. Devise activities to ensure that all staff are at least at a “active-consultation” commitment level. Ensure that all staff are at a “keep-informed” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach managers to counsel their staff to not act like children if they don’t like the Change.

d) Hold a kick-off meeting with the senior members of the organization’s staff, including key stakeholders who do not directly work with IT. Devise activities to ensure that all the management is at least at a “helps-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure that all staff are at a “keep-informed” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach staff to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.


Unit7Organizing for Service Transition



7.4.2 SPECIFIC ROLES

In the past, the Royal has experienced difficulties during the rollout of new applications and infrastructure. There have been numerous Incidents, outages, and delays. In at least one instance, it was necessary to revert to the old application for some time while the new application was reworked. Generally, upgrades and new Releases have unpredictable results.

The new kiosk service represents a new step forward. This is a customer-facing application and is tightly linked to the business. Although the Royal is still fairly immature with respect to ITIL processes, it recognizes that there is a need to implement key Service Transition processes, including SACM, Change Management, Release and Deployment Management, Service Validation and Testing, and so on. This will be a major Change for the IT organization, and it is important to understand all the roles, responsibilities, and interrelationships of these processes to be able to map them to existing IT staff.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Identify the key roles of Service Transition in the context of the kiosk service.


Answer:

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Organizing for Service Transition



The Royal wishes to move forward with Service Transition, particularly to support the new kiosk service. It is a relatively small organization and constrained by resources.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. In an organization such as the Royal, which roles would you implement first?


Answer:



Q2. Why will you implement these roles first?


Answer:

Q3. Would you implement all of them?


Answer:

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Organizing for Service Transition


Q4. What aspects of the roles would you focus on first?


Answer:

Q5. Which roles might be phased in later?


Answer:




Two companies have recently merged and the senior management is aggressively looking to integrate and quickly receive the expected benefits of the synergy.

Here are some characteristics of the two companies:

y Company A:

o The IT department has a Help Desk, but with a history of issues with computing resources.

o There is limited ITIL experience.

o There are strong Purchase and Finance departments that have implemented a best-practice Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.

o There is strong Supplier Management and cost control.

y Company B:

o There is a smaller but more centralized IT department.

o There is some ITIL maturity.

o A Service Desk and limited Change Management have been implemented.

o Currently, there are an IT Asset Manager and mature processes, including central receiving for IT within operations.

The CIO of the new entity is under pressure to get short-term costs under control and develop a clear picture of the combined IT assets. Going forward, there is a need to understand how IT resources are supporting the business. Chargebacks for IT resources are also likely to be mandated.

Q1. What are your recommendations on key roles and how some of the responsibilities should be placed?

a) The IT Asset Manager should be reassigned to the Purchasing department and continue to do the same tasks. She should evaluate the existing systems for IT Asset Management.

b) The Purchasing and Finance groups within Company A already have a well-implemented solution and so should take the lead in Asset Management. IT assets and suppliers are just like the others and so can be easily handled within that tool and process. The strong ties to financials make chargebacks easy.

c) Leverage the existing IT Asset Manager and consider engaging departmental computing resources to extend the process. The Configuration Manager role also needs to be quickly established. Finally, appoint a Configuration Manager and develop a plan for the Change Management role.

d) ITIL has been recognized as part of the answer and because neither company has a real ITIL base, you should look to initiate a full Service Management initiative. This includes Service Transition. You should appoint a Service Transition Manager to lead this effort. By implementing SACM and Change Management, you will be positioned to achieve the objectives.


Unit8 Technology Considerations



8.1.3 COLLABORATION

DiscussionQ1. How can you improve the collaboration process?


Answer:

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Technology Considerations


Q2. Name some Knowledge Services to improve collaboration.


Answer:

8.1.4 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Royal has started to implement a number of ITIL-based processes, including the Service Desk, Incident Management, Request Management, Asset Management, Change Management, and Problem Management. A number of systems, including manual ones, support these processes. In addition, the technical groups have a variety of specialty tools. There is a recognized need to move forward with a CMS to achieve greater maturity. However, the management knows of a number of horror stories associated with CMDB implementations. Those projects grew out of control, generated huge costs, and had limited value or practical use.



Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Analyze some of the functional requirements for the CMS.


Answer:


DiscussionQ1. Discuss how your organization has used various technology solutions to support Service

Transition, such as Change Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management.


Answer:

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Technology Considerations



You are part of a large, successful organization. While your IT department is not fully ITIL compliant, it has some operational processes, such as Service Desk and Asset Management, in place. The department is mature and has a reputation for being Risk averse, although the CIO is trying to change that. There have been recent strategic planning and enterprise architecture initiatives. There are also some concerns about the number of IT tools being used to support IT and the different data sources. It is difficult to get a true view of any problems, especially from a business perspective. The concept of a CMDB is very attractive to many people. You are an independent consultant who has been asked for recommendations.

Q1. What type of recommendations will you suggest?

a) You suggest taking advantage of the organization’s strengths, fully examining all the existing data sources, and modeling them. Then, an appropriate technical solution can be found.

b) You suggest that the organization should pilot a CMDB in a limited area. This will allow an opportunity to determine requirements, test the technical solution, and move forward carefully.

c) You realize that this is not just a technical exercise. A more structured approach to Configuration Management is required. You recognize the need for additional processes, especially Change Management, to maintain the environment. This is a tool and process implementation project.

d) The existing data is well maintained and documented by the individual areas, which should act as guides for that data. Focusing on interfacing and making the data available provides an immediate return. Enhanced reporting provides an opportunity to prove the concept and gain momentum.


Unit9Implementing and Improving

Service Transition

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Implementing and Improving Service Transition



A Service Transition implementation might have to deal with a wide range of Problems that vary from organization to organization. While it is overly simplistic, sometimes, a distinction can be between “technology issues” versus “people issues.”

Technical issues may include technical complexity, very short timescales, unrealistic expectations, restricted finances or resource availability, lack of test environments, inadequate tools, lack of technical skills, and so on.

People issues could include internal, political difficulties, staff disincentives, corporate culture, “difficult” people, or confrontational management styles, internal rivalries, and competitiveness, absence of anticipated skills sets, conflicting objectives, and so on.

Scenario-Based Activity

Q1. Which is more important — “people issues” or “technology issues?”


Answer:



Q2. Which do you think is “easier” to deal with, people issues or technology issues? Why?


Answer:

Q3. How would you address people issues and technology issues?


Answer:

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Implementing and Improving Service Transition



While your medium-sized organization has had some success in implementing Service Operation processes, you are the newly appointed Service Transition Manager. There is still some skepticism about the value of Service Transition because, usually, the environment is fairly stable and there aren’t a number of Changes. In addition, a new business transformation project is the focus of the entire organization. This project is being led by the business and managed by an external consulting organization that is implementing a well-known Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) product. To ensure the success of the implementation, the consultants have convinced the business of the need to follow their own project/process methodologies.

Q1. How should you proceed?

a) The re-engineering project offers an opportunity to move forward. It has significant political clout and resources, as well as some established methodologies. You should try to align your Service Transition activities with this effort while still working to communicate the value of Service Transition. Shaping the project into broader-based Service Transition should give both short-term and long-term benefits.

b) To overcome the skepticism about Service Transition, you need to undertake an education and communication effort. You should try to show the potential value to the business. After building support, you should carefully design the Service Transition activities.

c) You feel that the re-engineering project will take a long time and faces serious obstacles. However, you do need to overcome the skepticism and want to show short-term results. You should identify a pilot area and work with it.

d) Because the re-engineering project is consuming the organization, you should put your own efforts on hold till the project is complete. The project will introduce various elements that you can leverage eventually, and you can let the project deal with resistance.


Unit10Challenges, CSFs, and Risks

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Challenges, CSFs, and Risks


10.4 SERVICE TRANSITION UNDER DIFFICULT CONDITIONS

The kiosk application is scheduled for launch. It is a highly critical, customer-facing application. There have been some issues with both hardware and software vendors, and the project is now running late. Originally, a great deal of trust was placed in the hardware and software vendors, but early testing has indicated some problems in coordinating with each other and with the Royal infrastructure. There is limited ITIL awareness in most IT personnel, but they do have a strong understanding and commitment to the business. This project must succeed, and it is becoming obvious that Service Transition must be implemented to support the launch.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. What are the challenges facing Service Transition because of external factors?


Answer:


THEROYAL

CHAO PHRAYAHOTEL

THE HOTEL CHALLENGES ORG. CHART MANAGEMENT & STAFF

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Case Study


THEROYAL

CHAO PHRAYAHOTEL

The Royal Chao Phraya Hotel (nicknamed the Royal) is a city hotel situated on the banks of the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok.

Built in 1983 by the Chinese-Thai businessman, Teck-Wee Lim (Harry Lim to his friends), its 32 floors have been a fixture on the city skyline for almost 25 years. The Royal is modeled after its neighbor, the historic Oriental Hotel. Its dominance on the five-star hotel market is increasingly challenged by many newcomers, such as the Peninsular (1998) and the Royal Orchid Sheraton (remodeled in 2001), some with the backing of multinational brands.

As the competition has grown over the past 10 years, it is becoming more difficult to achieve the occupancy rate that the hotel is used to while maintaining its target room rates, which vary from $145 to $445.

Despite the newfound rivalry, the Royal is well appreciated by its guests, many of whom are repeat business customers.

As a rule of thumb, from May through October, the guests are mostly business visitors while November through April and most weekends tend to be dominated by tourists. The Royal has always had a considerable advantage over other five-star hotels through its connection with the Saphan Taksin Conference Center.

This is because the Revenue per Available Room (RevPar) from conference attendees is, on an average, 30-50% higher than that from regular hotel guests. This is especially true when conferences are organized for medical, legal, insurance, or IT professionals, who spend up to three times the amount a regular hotel guest does on lodging and ancillary services.

As a city hotel, the Royal depends on good access to public transport. It is less than 100 yards from Bangkok’s upscale sky train service (BTS), which allows guests to reach the most attractive parts of the city comfortably, quickly, and safely. It also has its own boat service offering guests river tours as well astrips to more exotic parts of the city, such as the floating market.



FACILITIES

Rating:

Business center, restaurants, bar, fitness center with sauna and spa, and outdoor pool

Signature restaurant Heavenly 33

Lobby bar Sugar Reef

Smoking Club Harry’s

Four restaurants Leased to outside companies

FACTSHEET

Rooms 340

Standard 130

Sky View 80

Sky Executive 130

The average guest stays 3.5 days at the hotel.

PERSONNEL

Over 200 people work at the hotel, with only the front desk employing 70 people, 24 of whom work in shifts in guest services and reception.

The average staff attrition is 30% per year. So, on an average, a complete replacement of personnel is seen every 3 years. Of course, in reality, a core team of employees has worked at the hotel for many years. In fact, 32 staff members have celebrated over 20 years of service at the Royal.

} Suites 30



THE BUSINESS CHALLENGES THAT LEAD TO IT CHALLENGES

SERVICE QUALITY

The General Manager (James) recently sponsored a thesis project on service quality from the Hospitality School of the University of Queensland at the hotel. The results were a shock to the management. In the 1 month that the project ran, 73 critical incidents resulting in unhappy guests were discovered.

The students found that 50% of the complaints concerned discrepancies in guest expectations and services offered. Thirty-five percent were actual service failures, such as over-booking or the incorrect fulfillment of a guest’s request; and about 13% were described as “demanding guests” whose requests were excessive and whose judgment was harsh, even by objective, fair standards.

James and the Manager - Rooms Division (Dimitri) are particularly concerned about the 85% of complaints that were considered avoidable. Further analysis has revealed that 50% of these complaints originated in the early stages of the stay and, consequently, meant revenue was lost because clients opted to shorten their stay or cancel altogether.

The report also found that the Royal, while employing a number of gifted and highly motivated personnel, did not have a structured Service Recovery or Compensation plan. In fact, some of the complaints were because of the guests’ perception that some of them were treated differently (better) when they complained about similar incidents.

NEW FORMS OF COMPETITION

The Royal has made its mark as a city hotel, but its leading competitors from the chains are winning some of its clients by assembling different tourist experiences from various Thai hotels into one package.

For example, some clients are spending 3 days in Bangkok and then a number of days in the luscious countryside of Chiang Mai with its vibrant local markets and elephant treks or perhaps one of the islands such as Ko Samui or Ko Phi Phi.

Conference guests traveling with their spouse or entire family are particularly attracted to this offering. The Royal’s management is actively looking at how new services can be introduced into the portfolio to combat this erosion of the valuable repeat/conference guests.

SCALABILITY

Another challenge for the Royal is partially due to its own successful collaboration with the Saphan Taksin Conference Center. Building on the success of the past 10 years, Saphan Taksin has recently decided to expand its conference facility by 70%. This will lead to a peak demand for accommodation in excess of 1,100 rooms. The Royal has the land and the financial means to expand, but this type of move requires investment from the holding company. While James is concerned that the Royal hasn’t really analyzed this new developmentsufficiently, the hotel owner (Harry) is convinced that Saphan Taksin will never achieve its goal of attracting so many more new conference guests.



THE ROYAL’S RESPONSE TO BUSINESS AND IT CHALLENGES

THE KIOSK SOLUTION

To help handle the increase in guest traffic while improving the guest experience, the Royal has decided to install and commission kiosks to provide guests with the self-service capability. The kiosks will enable guests to book services at the spa, book a scuba lesson in the pool, get printed information, such as maps and coupons to local restaurants, and so on.

The new system uses the guest’s room entry card extensively. The rationale is that guests must have their room key to be able to get into their room. So, in almost all situations at the hotel, it is reasonable to expect the guests to have their room card with them. The most important aspect of the card is that it authenticates who the guests are. The cards will also have the capability to have new or updated information written to them by the kiosk hardware. While this is a great advance for the Royal, kiosks rely on IT, so there are many issues that need to be thought through before they go live.

Through a previous hotel loyalty program, customers were given paper coupons for using additional services around the pool such as the sauna or for free meals and drinks. Unfortunately, the customers kept losing these paper coupons frequently and complained that there must be a better way to manage these perks of membership. The use of room cards combined with the kiosk functionality should be the solution to this situation.

In addition to kiosks, the Royal wants to allow guests who are using their laptops in their rooms (an ever-increasing number) to be able to do all the functions that are available from the kiosk. One big difference between the two situations is that whenusing a laptop, there is no way to update the guest room access card, although the application can link the ordered services to a particular room.



NONESSENTIAL READING BACKGROUND INFORMATION

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

THE OWNER

TECK-WEE LIM (HARRY)

Harry Lim made his money as a silk trader in the 1970s. His original business was based on trading in cheap and cheerful clothing aimed at the tourists passing through Bangkok. His company’s success accelerated when Ralph Lauren signed up one of his textile factories in Udon Thani to produce suits, under contract to the Lauren brand, for export to the US. Since then, Harry hasn’t looked back.

In 1981, one of his creditors had severe financial difficulties and to clear his debt, Harry took on the Royal Chao Phraya Hotel as payment. At the time, the Royal was a partially completed hotel at a superb location. Harry financed the completion of the hotel and threw open the Royal in 1983.

Harry is a very cautious and astute businessman. He does not really understand the intricacies of the hospitality industry, so he works on the simple premise that quality works. “The guests are always right, so get the right guest and treat them right, and you will be successful.” Harry does not like spending on things that are not visible to the customer. As a result, while his Smoking Club is ostentatious, with leather chairs, teak finishing, and gold trimmings, there has been little investment in supporting infrastructure, such as IT applications.



THE ORG. CHART

TECK-WEE LIM

(HARRY)

Owner

AKKARAT LIM

(JAMES)

General Manager

DIMITRI VAN RIJN

(DIMITRI)

Manager

Rooms Division

CHE INGLESIAS

(CHE)

Manager

Food & Beverage

KIET APILUKTOYANUNT

(PAP)

Manager

Engineering

KANYA UNGVICHIAN

(NEE)

Manager

Sales & Marketing

SUVARNA

Manager

Recreational Services

KATSUSHI

FUJIYAMA

Manager

Finance

STU

MILLER

Manager

Human Resources

DANIAL KIDWAI

(DAN)

Maintenance

Chief

ISABEL O’HARA

Front Office and

Business Center Head

MARY

SANCHEZ

Executive

Housekeeper

JUANITA

SANCHEZ

Accountant

YVETTE

LEROUX

Chef

JEAN

Assistant

Chef



THE MANAGEMENT

THE GENERAL MANAGER

AKKARAT LIM (JAMES)

James is Harry’s second son. It was always Harry’s intent for James to take on the hotel business. After attending the Harrow School in Bangkok, James went on to study at the International Hotel and Tourism Industry Management School in Bangkok. On completion, he attended the New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management, where he graduated with MSc Honors in 1997.

James has inherited his Thai mother’s free spirit. His mother, Isra Sangsirithorn (everyone calls her Elle), was raised on the Thai island of Ko Pha Ngan and has always been an extrovert lover of life, somewhat balancing her husband’s more-cautious, introvert character.

James is now 36 and keen to escape his father’s yoke and really modernize the hotel. James, who can sense the winds of change in the industry, is now actively challenging the natural thrift of Mr. Lim, which helped build the Royal Chao Phraya Hotel.

His comparative youth, modern outlook, and the islanders’ love of enjoying the moment makes it somewhat frustrating for him to keep his plans for expansion and personnel changes in check.

MANAGER — ROOMS DIVISION

DIMITRI VAN RIJN

The biggest job at the Royal is arguably that of Manager — Rooms Division. Harry knew early on that he needed real expertise to take on this task and has always filled it with Dutch graduates from the well-respected Maastricht Hotel Management School in Holland.

Dimitri is the fourth graduate from the school to take on this role. He is typically Dutch in his focus on being practical and pragmatic. He also believes that it is important to be very close to his employees, through his empowered and collaborative approach to management. That doesn’t always work in the traditional Asian culture, and Dimitri is often at odds with Harry, who doesn’t ever trust employees who aren’t family. The staff, frequently from the rural province of Isan, don’t quite know what to make of the eccentric Dutchman and his unusual style!



MANAGER — FOOD AND BEVERAGE

CHE IGLESIAS

Che is a flamboyant man of Cuban descent, whose parents fled to Florida in the 1960s. Preferring the slow rhythm of the tropics, he is a natural counter-balance to the ever-energetic Dimitri. Harry and Che share a love for cigars and believe that spending lavishly on guests is key to success. Che has not had any formal training in this role and, as a result, does not make use of regular F&B metrics, such as the Pour/Cost percentage1 for efficiency in the bar.

Che has grown through the ranks after settling in Bangkok while on a post-graduation, sabbatical world tour. He worked as a waiter and short-order cook in Miami while working his way through his BBA at the University of Miami. This limited exposure to the business and strong support from Harry has enabled Che to muddle through as F&B Manager. His day begins a little later than that of all other personnel and a siesta is always on the schedule,— “why kill yourself working today when you will only miss the party tomorrow?”

MANAGER — ENGINEERING

KIET APILUKTOYANUNT (PAP)

Pap is a cautious engineer who graduated from the prestigious Chulalongkong University. He is a very good technical engineer who takes his work seriously. He believes passionately in quality but, as a result, some of his tasks take longer to complete than guests expect. Pap hasn’t traveled outside of the country other than on vacation, and he isn’t very comfortable with English or conversing with foreign guests.

Like many Thai, Pap does not like any form of confrontation. Consequently, he sometimes finds himself promising things to guests or colleagues to avoid an issue and then being “unavailable” in the event that he cannot deliver on the promise.

Dimitri and James would like to bring in someone who is more comfortable dealing with international guests to work with Pap. To some extent, Dan Kidwai, the maintenance chief with his experience in South East Asia is a help. However, he prefers to stick to his beloved machines rather than to engage with guests. The problem is that Pap would see that as a loss of face, and because he is Elle’s cousin, he has significant support.

1. The pour cost percentage is determined by dividing the cost of goods sold by sales (portion cost/selling price). Consequently, a 20% pour cost means that it costs the taxpayer $.20 to generate $1.00 of liquor sales, which translates to a gross profit margin of 80% and a markup on cost of 400%.



MANAGER — MARKETING AND SALES

KANYA UNGVICHIAN (NEE)

Nee is a young, well-connected, confident professional. She originally studied finance but quickly found out that she has flair with customers. She studied economics at Harvard in the United States and received an MBA in Europe.

Her family consists of well-connected traders, and Nee has successfully tapped into their network of friends and relatives to ensure a steady stream of clients for the Royal. In addition, many of her former classmates are active in the medical, legal, and IT sectors. These contacts give her access to lucrative conference and banquet events.

MANAGER — RECREATIONAL SERVICES

SUVARNA

Suvarna is the darling of the Royal. She just appeared at Harry’s door one day, confidently asking for a chance to set up a small massage facility. This has since grown into a significant recreational facility. No one seems to know her full name or how old she really is. “It didn’t seem polite to ask,” Harry is fond of saying.

Suvarna is charming and elegant; she is a former champion swimmer who learned her trade at the prestigious Tettucio spa in Montecatini, Italy. Her next ambition is to set up a fully equipped daycare center, but Harry does not see the need for such innovation. “Crying babies would just disturb the other guests and our own staff would probably bring all their children from the provinces and crowd the place up.”

MANAGER — HUMAN RESOURCES

STU MILLER

Stu is a colorful American who moved to Thailand with his partner in 2001, after 9/11. The tragedy in New York altered his view of the meaning of life. He wanted to tone down his existence in the fast lane, and Thailand seemed a good place to go. Ultimately, Stu wants to move to one of the islands and open his own resort. He

somehow finds it difficult to escape the trendy excitement of Bangkok, even though, after New York, it still seems provincial in many ways.

Stu has a PhD in education and feels a little underutilized in his current role, but it is a good job and he likes the interplay of cultures that make up his portfolio.

MANAGER — FINANCE

KATSUSHI FUJIYAMA

Fujiyama-san is Japanese and a trained accountant who has worked in many different fields, including IT and education, before settling in his current role. Fujiyama-san met Harry many years ago in Tokyo when Harry was negotiating an export deal with a Japanese importer and Fujiyama-san was the negotiator. Harry was so impressed, he made an offer that “could not be refused,” and Fujiyama-san has now worked at the Royal for 6 years.

While Fujiyama-san is serious and conscientious about his tasks, he also loves to have fun outside of the office. He can often be found with Che and Harry at the Amadis, an upscale Karaoke bar, or at one of the prestigious sake bars, such as Wasabi, in town.



THE STAFF

FRONT OFFICE AND BUSINESS CENTER HEAD

ISABEL O’HARA

Responsible for the front office, including the lobby, Isabel plays a key role at the Royal. In fact, her energy and love of technology is what made both Harry and James give her additional charge of the business center and the coffee shop, which James envisages as an informal chill-out zone for the business guests and the young, techno-savvy tourists. A whirlwind of energy, she is literally wherever the action is, and as some might say, if there is no action, she creates it!

Isabel believes in personal attention and keeping tight control over every customer interaction. No detail is too small to escape her notice, so much so that her team is now happy for her to take on the responsibility of every decision because their initiative seems unwanted. Small wonder then that she is exhausted at the end of the day and wonders how much more she can manage just by herself! Advice she has received includes adjusting her intense approach or face a possible burnout. These days, she barely has time for jazz and is usually too tired for scuba diving, her favorite leisure activities.

CHEF AND ASSISTANT CHEF

YVETTE LEROUX AND JEAN

Madame Yvette Leroux is an institution at the Royal. She can literally change the mood at any time, especially if her decisions are not accepted. Mme. Yvette is a gifted chef and a master of several types of cuisine. “Food,” she proclaims, “can be cooked by anyone, but only the French make it divine.” The management is only too happy to humor her, given the mouth-watering food she conjures up, including her unbeatable range of pastries.

But, Che knows how many anxious moments she gives her team as she ponders and broods over her menu till the last moment, and then spews forth the list of provisions she needs. The fresh seafood, vegetables, and fruits that she insists on are purchased from the local market at Saphan Mai, an hour away. This has led to a popular local tradition called the Royal Grand Prix.

THE ROYAL GRAND PRIX

A group of local vendors, preselected through years of experience, is in a state of high alert. The hotel van, with Mme. Yvette’s young assistant — Jean — pacing, cell phone in hand, is on standby. The moment the phone rings and the instructions are noted, the vendors swing into action and the loading frenzy begins.

Within minutes, the van is loaded and Jean’s speed on the Royal Grand Prix is unrivalled. There is a discreet betting ring that lays odds on how long it will take Jean to make it back to the hotel. There was even talk of turning this into a professional race till the otherwise easy-going police nipped such ideas in the bud.



Jean, with Che’s tacit support, has made some not-so-subtle suggestions about making this a weekly, and not a daily, ritual — not least because of the expense. However, till now, no action has been taken to resolve this issue.

Knowing he is facing a formidable adversary, Che is quietly pushing for the upgrade of the coffee shop, offering a variety of food that can be served quickly and Wi-Fi areas for the business guest. At least publicly, Madame Yvette remains unconcerned about the threat from the coffee shop and the other “fast-food” ideas of James.

EXECUTIVE HOUSEKEEPER

MARY SANCHEZ

The elder of the two Sanchez sisters, Mary is a perfectionist who is intolerant of any sloppiness. Her white-glove inspections would do credit to a drill sergeant of the Marine Corps — one reason why the entire staff trembles in her presence.

Nobody doubts her integrity; however, it is her impossibly high standards that often terrify the housekeeping team.

Mary has a passion for flowers, her favorite being the rare Parrot flower, and counts the elderly gardener, with whom she has coffee at 11 am every day, as among her few friends. Very thorough with her planning, control, and instructions, she is at her wits’ end with the increasing number of complaints about housekeeping. No amount of repeated instructions or scolding seems to make a difference to the personnel.

ACCOUNTANT

JUANITA SANCHEZ

Juanita Sanchez is the younger, fun-loving sister of Mary. Juanita’s encouraging manner goes a long way to energize the young people at the Royal with her natural leadership qualities. The confidant of many of the younger girls, including and especially in Housekeeping, she is often caught between two contradictory influences. On the one hand is her loyalty and affection for her older sister, and on the other is her growing concern that the quality of service for which Housekeeping was known is slipping.

Much better with people and figures than her elder sister, she is contemplating a formal course in management (apart from her basic qualification in accounting) because she feels that qualifications, savvy, and experience are never enough in an increasingly competitive world.

Juanita is a firm friend of the Business Center Head, Isabel O’Hara, who has not only helped her explore technology, but with whom she spends time as a student, learning all things fun, educational, and practical online.



MAINTENANCE CHIEF

DANIAL KIDWAI (Dan)

Dan is a stocky, quiet, 37-year old, who loves to work with machinery. As his seniority increases, he resents the time he needs to spend in meetings and drafting memos and seeks every opportunity to get his hands “dirty.” He is happiest with a flask of tea and his tool kit.

However, he is smart enough to realize that growth means that he either sets up his own “shop” or he grows in the hotel hierarchy. With a big, extended family dependent on him, the former option is more risky.

His grandparents migrated from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Myanmar, and finally reached Thailand. He has come up the hard way, and educated himself at night school, leading to an Engineering diploma, while working during the day.

He has worked for several establishments, including a business center in Indonesia, a hotel in Thailand, and a resort in Malaysia.

He is respected by his staff for his mechanical skill and his ability to insulate them from the management. In turn, the management respects Dan’s ability to get along with his people, and his “noiseless” ability to get things done. Despite his quiet demeanor, he is very effective at negotiating with vendors.

Dan likes listening to folk songs in his mother tongue, Bangla, and enjoys playing football on the weekend. When not wearing overalls, simple cottons are his preferred mode of dress.

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Answers



The Royal has some existing corporate rules. Quite a few groups have a stake in changed Services as well as different groups internal to IT. The Royal is increasingly dependent on IT to support the Services that it offers, and it has decided to adopt the ITIL approach of having a Service Transition phase for each Service Change. It sensibly decides to come up with a set of policies for Service Transition.

You need to decide what should be in each policy, and think about what best practices might be appropriate for each policy.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Given the Royal’s corporate and service management policies outlined in the scenario and the

ITIL guidance, recommend (i.e., draft) some service transition policies that would be appropriate to the Royal. Defend your recommendations.

Sample Answer:

Policy 1 — Define and implement a formal policy for Service Transition.

Alignment with governance

Sponsors and decision-makers involved and committed

Integrated teams

Deployment early in Release design

Best practice: Obtain sign-off from stakeholders.

Policy 2 — Implement all Changes to Services through Service Transition.

Single focal point

People with no authority having no access to the production environment

Each Release Package governed by an RFC for traceability and so on

Best practice:

y Internal and external Changes differentiated

y SDP defines expected progress

y Management commitment essential

y Configuration audit identifies unauthorized Changes

y Late Changes should not be accepted



Policy 3 — Adopt a common framework and standards.

Reusable processes

Framework must be under Change Management

Audit to ensure process use

Best practices:

y Publishing standards and best practices

y Providing supporting systems to automate

y Delivering improvements based on business case

y Closing gaps in stakeholder commitment level

y Planning to improve buy-in to framework and standards

Policy 4 — Maximize reuse of established processes and systems.

Service Transition processes align with organization’s processes

Processes reused, wherever possible

Data capture from original source

Developing reusable models

Best practices:

y Service Transition process in Quality Management system

y Use of a Project Management Office (PMO)

y Use of existing channels for Service Transition communication

y Following of existing processes for HR, training, finance, and so on

Policy 5 — Align Service Transition plans with business needs.

Set customer expectations.

Provide information so Releases can be integrated with business processes.

Transfer knowledge.

Monitor and measure the use of Services to avoid premature closure of the transition.

Best practices:

y Use PMO.

y Manage stakeholder commitment and communications.



Policy 6 — Establish and maintain relationships with stakeholders.

Set stakeholder expectations.

Communicate changes to stakeholders.

Provide knowledge.

Best practices:

y Share transition plans.

y Work with BRM and SLM on stakeholder relationships.

Policy 7 — Establish effective controls and disciplines.

Establish and maintain the integrity of all identified Service Assets and configurations.

Automate audit activities.

Ensure responsibilities defined at handover points of RACIs throughout transition.

Best practices:

y Integrated processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration, SLM)

y Only competent staff make Changes.

y Perform configuration audits.

Policy 8 — Provide systems for knowledge transfer and decision support.

Quality data/information to the right people at the right time.

Ensure adequate training.

Improve quality of documentation.

Easy access to information.

Establish definitive source of information.

Best practices:

y Easy access, presentation, and reporting to SKMS and CMS.

y Ensure accurate information in SACM.

Policy 9 — Plan Release and Deployment packages.

Release policy agreed with business



Releases planned in advance

Resources optimized and coordinated

Risks of backing out Release are assessed and managed

Release effectiveness is measured

Best practices:

y Updates recorded in CMS

y Use of DML

y Relate Releases to Change Requests and Problems

y Pre- and co-requisites are documented

Policy 10 — Anticipate and manage course corrections.

Course corrections are expected and should be managed through Change Management.

Policy 11 — Proactively manage resources across Service Transitions.

Recognize skills and knowledge.

Establish dedicated resources for critical activities.

Manage shared resources.

Automate repetitive processes.

Best practices:

y Use resources outside the core ITSM team.

y Measure the Impact of using nondedicated resources.

Policy 12 — Ensure early involvement in the Service Lifecycle.

Maximize fault detection early in the Service Lifecycle.

Identify Changes that will not deliver the expected benefits.

Best practice:

y Involve customers and users in acceptance test planning.



Policy 13 — Assure the quality of the new or changed Service.

Ensure Service Transition teams understand what the stakeholders require.

Test environments reflect the live environment.

Test design and execution should be independent.

Best practices:

y Understand the business process and priorities.

y Stakeholder involvement that is visible.

y Test environments under Change Management.

y Establish the current Service baseline before the evaluation of Change.

Policy 14 — Proactively improve quality during Service Transition.

Detect and resolve Incidents and Problems.

Best practice:

y Compare actual vs. predicted capability, performance, and costs during pilots and ELS.

y Use the Risk profile from Service Design to design Risk-based tests.

y Provide diagnostic tools.

y Encourage cross-fertilization of knowledge between transition and operation.

y Do due diligence on Incidents and Problems (root cause, fix Known Errors, document Workarounds, track number of Incidents per Release, and so on).


Manudyn, a manufacturing company, wants to put policies in place for Service Transition. Manudyn has 200 people in IT, and has previously implemented the following processes of ITIL version 2: Incident, Problem, Change, and Configuration. Release Management was designed, but no comprehensive tool support was put in place. Release Management is primarily done by application development.

You are the newly appointed manager of Service Transition. You know that the concept of having a separate Lifecycle phase for transition is new to Manudyn. You want to do the right thing, but you are not sure how to proceed.

Manudyn has been doing quite a few of the activities of Service Transition in the past, but not always executed them very well. Here are some facts about Service Transition at Manudyn:

Change has been done quite well, but in a variety of ways. The enterprise has always done a diligent job of testing, although on occasion, the tests were done by the same people who built the Release in the development environment. This caused issues later because some conditions were not tested for, and the production environment was sufficiently different from the development environment to render some of the test incomplete.



When using a 3rd party provider, there was confusion about who was doing what and when they were doing it, causing deadlines to be missed.

On occasion, IT has completed a rollout only to find that the users of a Release were not ready to use it from a business-timing point of view. Sometimes, the users of a Release were ready, but found they didn’t know how to use the Service.

When new Services are to be released, the Service Desk often did not know how to handle issues.

Q1. Which of the following options is your best course of action to get policies in place?

a) You know that policies are necessary to get the work of Service Transition done. You also know that there are 14 different policy areas, which seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn. To make progress, you decide to choose the most important of the policies and draft a document on that basis. You know that the CFO has some opinions on financial policies so you decide to get his input. Your strategy is to enlist the CIO so that the policies can be enacted at the next meeting where Service Transition is discussed.

b) You know that the CEO is a tough sell on anything that customers do not see. He is known to be unpredictable, so you do not want to put the CIO in the position where his veto will cause him loss of face. If you keep a tight grip on the activities of Service Transition, you know you can run it efficiently and effectively. You plan to keep your eye on delivering outcomes by reducing Risks and containing costs, and as long as you do that, only minimal policies are required. You will work these out as they become necessary.

c) You know that policies are necessary to get the work of Service Transition done. The number of policy areas is extensive, and seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn. To make progress, you decide to choose the most important of the policies and draft a document on that basis. You know that the CFO has some opinions on financial policies so you decide to get his input. You need to ensure there is a policy about having a single process that everyone uses, and you should get concurrence from stakeholders on this point. Your strategy is to enlist the CIO so that the policies can be enacted at the next meeting where Service Transition is discussed.

d) You know that policies are necessary to getting the work of Service Transition done. You also know that there are 14 different policy areas, which seems excessive for an organization the size of Manudyn.

Answers:

a) 3: Second Best. The answer is fine in that it includes stakeholder input, but it does not attempt to address any of the facts in the scenario.

b) 0: Distracter. This is complete nonsense.

c) 5: Most Correct. The answer is complete, takes into account the need for stakeholder input, and acknowledges one of the facts in the scenario.

d) 1: Third Best. Technically OK, but no stakeholder input was solicited.


ActivityQ1. List the trigger, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of Service Transition.

Sample Answer: Refer to Topic 3.1.5 in the Reference Material.




ActivityQ1. Complete the table given in your Workbook by explaining the key Change Evaluation terms. Sample Answer:

Terms DefinitionService Change Is defined as a Change to an existing Service or the addition of a new Service. It is in

the form of an RFC from Change Management.SDP Is a plan for Service Changes for a specific period. It also defines the acceptance criteria

and proposed performance of a Service.Performance Is defined as the Utilities and Warranties of a Service.Performance model Is a representation of the performance of a Service.Predicted performance Is the predicted performance of a Service after a Service Change.Actual performance Is the actual performance of the Service after the Service Change.Deviations report Is the gap between the predicted and actual performance of the Service after the

Service Change.Risk Is a calculation based on the probability and adverse Impact of a Service not performing.Countermeasure Is the mitigation plan you implement to reduce Risk.Test plan and results Is a plan to test and verify a Service Change. The amount and level of testing depends

on the Impact assessment of the Service Change. The results indicate the actual performance after the implementation of the Change.

Residual Risk Is the Risk that remains after deploying countermeasures.Service capability Is the ability of a Service to perform as required.Capacity Is the ability of an organization to maintain Service capability under any predefined

circumstances.Constraint Is the limit of an organization’s capacity.Resource Is the organization’s requirement to maintain Service capability.Change Evaluation plan Is the result of the evaluation planning exercise.Change Evaluation report Is the report created by the Change Evaluation function after evaluating a Service.

This report consists of a Risk profile, a deviations report, a recommendation, and a qualification statement.




ActivityQ1. Complete the blank fields in the Change Evaluation process workflow outline given below.

Change evaluation process flow Based on AXELOS ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS.



Sample Answer:

Change evaluation process flowBased on AXELOS ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS.


ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the evaluation process.





1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the



entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of CAB members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.





Sample Answer:Some of the areas that need to be addressed are:

y Service Transition Planning and Support — perform resource planning for all Service Transition activities, create and maintain a responsibility matrix, and oversee the amalgamation of existing processes and the implementation of new ones.

y Evaluation – avoid Service Design and Service Changes before transition activities to avoid doing things the business does not value.


ActivityQ1. Describe the Change Management process from the initiation of a Change Request.

Sample Answer:An individual or organizational group can raise Change Requests. Regardless of the initiator, you need to log, review, and assess all Change Requests as part of Change Management.



To do so, you will need a Change form or Change proposal with a full description of and the reason for the Change. In the Change form or proposal, you need to record all information related to the RFC such as its priority.

As the process progresses, you will add information including the authorities involved in authorizing, assessing, and evaluating the Change. You may also add work orders to implement the Change. You should also maintain and update all information related to RFCs in the CMS.

The various procedures that you follow to log and review RFCs are:

1. Log a Change Request: This is the first activity you perform after receiving a Change Request. Different organizations follow different procedures to log Change Requests. You can submit a Change Request in a document or through e-mail or any Web-based application. You should log RFCs and allocate a unique identification number to each RFC to ensure RFC tracking. Ideally, you should use an integrated Service Management tool to log the RFCs. This type of tool also helps store the complete data as well as the relationships between all assets and CIs, enabling you to assess the Impact on other Services easily.

2. Review Change Requests: After logging the Change Request, you must review and filter out any unwanted requests that are not feasible for implementation, are incomplete, or have been accepted or rejected earlier. You must return the rejected requests to the initiator along with reasons for the rejection. The initiator can request the Change again through the correct management channels.

3. Assess Change Requests: You need to assess Change Requests to identify their Impact on other Services, CIs, business operations, current Change schedules, resource requirements, continuity plans, security plans, and Service Operation practices. You should assess and categorize the associated Risks to prevent disruptions to the business or to the delivery of Services.

4. Evaluate Change Requests: After assessing the Risks and Impacts of the Change, the assessors also evaluate whether or not to approve the Change based on its Impact, Urgency, Risks, benefits, and costs.

5. Prioritize Change: Based on the assessment results and the Urgency and Impact of the Change, you need to prioritize the Change. The Change initiator will suggest the initial Impact and Urgency, but they may change in the Change authorization process.

6. Remediation Approaches: Remediation approaches, including back-out plans for reversible Changes and alternative remediation approaches for irreversible Changes, are an essential element of a Change. It is important for you to document these remediation approaches in the RFC.

7. Assess and evaluate the Impact of a Change: The “seven Rs” of the Change Management process help you assess and evaluate the Impact of a Change on Services. The answers to the seven questions constituting the seven Rs help you understand the Risks and benefits of the Change to the live Service. This also helps deliver the Change, as expected.

8. Authorize Changes: After logging and reviewing Changes, you need to authorize them.

You must obtain authorization from the defined authorities in your organization before implementing a Change. The organization should define the Change authorization hierarchy to authorize Changes. In addition, each authorization level may include delegated authority based on some predefined parameters of assessment such as the type, size, or Risk of the Change.

The authorizing hierarchy also includes the CAB and can include the Board of Directors. This is to help assess the Impact of the Change in terms of cost, benefits, and associated Risks and authorize it, if appropriate.

The following is an example of a Change authorization hierarchy.



Example of a change authorization model Based on AXELOS ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS.

9. Coordinate the Change Implementation: After Change authorization, you need to coordinate the Change implementation. Coordinating Change Requests includes tracking and coordinating them. Change Management coordinates the Change implementation while the actual implementation is the responsibility of others. For example, hardware changes are implemented by technical hardware specialists.

Remedial procedures must be prepared and documented in advance. If any error occurs, you can activate these procedures with minimal Impact to the Service. It is mandatory that you test the Change before implementing it. You do further testing after the implementation to test for usual or future situations.

It is a good idea to use formal methods, such as work orders, to pass authorized Changes to the relevant technical groups for implementation.

10. Review and Close Change: After you coordinate a Change, you need to review and close it. To do so, you need to:

o Collate Change documentation, for example, baselines and evaluation reports.

o Review the Change(s) and Change documentation.

o Close the Change document.

11. Record Change: After implementing the Change, you must record all the relevant information and send the report to the management team for review and evaluation. When reviewing the Change, you must also look at any Incidents that might arise because of the Change.




ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, and outputs of the Change Management process.


4.1.6 CSFs AND KPIs

ActivityQ1. Describe the following KPIs.

Sample Answer:

KPIs DescriptionObjective KPIs Represent overall performance goals.

Subjective KPIs Represent KPIs with qualitative attributes.Quality KPIs Represent quality goals.Organizational KPIs

Represent organizational goals.

Q2. Give examples of each KPI from your organization.

Sample Answer: There is no sample answer.

Q3. Which is the most important KPI and what happens if a KPI does not meet its target?

Sample Answer:All KPIs are important. If a KPI does not meet its target or give the expected results, it will become difficult for the organization to plan future Changes. Just reporting the number of Changes might not be helpful; reporting their cause and comparing all current and previous Changes will be useful to plan future Changes.


Activity Q1. What are CIs?

Sample Answer:

CIs are assets, Service components, or any other item that the Configuration Management process controls. The CIs may vary widely in complexity, size, and type. They could range from an entire Service or system, including all hardware, software, documentation, and support staff, to a single software module or minor hardware component. You can group them or manage them together. It is important to follow established selection criteria to select CIs.

Example of Grouped CIs

Grouping a set of components into a Release



Q2. What are the different categories of CIs?

Sample Answer: The different categories of CIs are:

CIsService Lifecycle CIs

Provide a broad view of the Service Provider’s Services, how the Service Providers deliver the Services, the benefits and costs of the Services, and when they will be realized. Some common CI types are business cases, Service Management plans, Service Lifecycle plans, SDPs, Release and Change plans, and test plans.

Service CIs Consist of:

y Service Capability assets: Management, organization, processes, knowledge, and people

y Service Resource assets: Financial, capital, systems, applications, information, data, infrastructure and facilities, and people

y Service Model

y Service Package

y Release Package

y Service Acceptance CriteriaOrganization CIs Consist of both the documentation required to define the characteristics of a CI and the

other documentation — constituting CIs in their own right — that needs to be controlled. Some examples of organizational CIs are the organization’s business strategy or other policies internal to the organization but independent of the Service Provider, regulatory or statutory requirements, and products shared between multiple groups.

Internal CIs Consist of CIs delivered by individual projects, including tangible assets, such as data centers, and intangible assets, such as the software required to deliver and maintain the Service and infrastructure.

External CIs Include external customer requirements and agreements, Releases from suppliers or subcontractors, and external Services.

Interface CIs Deliver an end-to-end Service across a Service Provider Interface (SPI).

4.2.5 TRIGGER, INPUTS, OUTPUTS, AND INTER-PROCESS INTERFACES

ActivityQ1. List the trigger, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the SACM process.



The Royal’s Service Desk restores Services for users by solving Incidents. It wants to use a database to help in this. In the database, the Service Desk needs to see old Incidents to be able to perform Incident matching. The Service Desk Manager would like more help than this, by having a system that could proactively suggest resolutions for Incidents. The Service Desk Manager also wants to see trend reports for the number of Incidents. The Service Desk Manager also has some responsibilities related to the provisioning of PCs to hotel staff, and finds there is confusion about which PCs



have which software installed. Consequently, the Royal’s management is nervous about passing an audit if one were conducted on software use. The Service Desk Manager would like to get Capacity Management to be able to predict the usage of file and print servers, which the Service Desk manager is also responsible for – and their use is growing fast! Actually, he would like to automate this activity so that he could easily identify when an upgrade would be required. He believes there is enough experience in the organization to allow this.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. In the scenario, apply the DIKW model to the different elements mentioned. (Refer to the

DIKW diagram in the Reference Material.)

Sample Answer: y Data – old Incidents – data system that could proactively suggest resolutions for Incidents

y Information – Incidents – knowledge trend reports for the number of Incidents

y Knowledge – information on which PCs have which software installed

y Wisdom – data predict the usage of file and print servers – knowledge experience in the organization

The Service Desk restores Service for users by solving Incidents – Service Desk view, CMDB.

Q2. Which elements are being used in the scenario? (Refer to the diagram of the CMS in the Reference Material.)

Sample Answer:Service Desk want to use a database to help them – CMS, CMDB trend reports for the number of Incidents – reporting provisioning of PCs – Asset Management view, Definitive Media Library (DML) to predict the usage of file and print servers – modeling


Continuing with the scenario in Topic 4.3.3, the people at the Royal who are executing the Knowledge Management process have implemented an SKMS. They now need to introduce it to the Service Desk staff.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. What methods can be used to train the Service Desk staff? What methods can be used to

accommodate different learning styles?

Sample Answer:The methods that can be used to train the Service Desk staff and accommodate different learning styles are:

y Simulation

y Supervised experience

y Classroom

y Self study

y Consideration of age, culture, attitude, and personality



Q2. What are some ways that information can be represented beyond textual presentation?

Sample Answer:The following are some ways that information can be represented beyond textual presentation:

y Diagrams

y Images

y Photographs

y Storyboards

y Animation

Q3. How can you ensure that you get the Service Desk staff to use the SKMS?

Sample Answer:You can ensure that the Service Desk staff use the SKMS through the following:

y Incorporate with tools

y Service Desk scripts

y Change Models

y Incident Models

Q4. As the SKMS evolves and other groups in the hotel start to use it, what vehicles can you use to spread the word, provide new information on the SKMS, and so on?

Sample Answer:

You can use the following to do so:

y Seminars

y Webinars

y Journals and newsletters


DiscussionQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of Knowledge Management.





1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than



they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of CAB members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.






y Change – have a single focal point, reduce levels of authorization and number of categories for simplicity, set emergency authorization at VP level, increase the number of standard Changes, and combine CABs.

y Service Asset and Configuration Management – use the asset register as the starting point for the CMDB, implement relationships, and implement verification and audit.

y Knowledge Management – institute this to ensure information flow, for example, Service Desk on new Releases, and use the DIKW model to provide reports that have value to the management.




A large manufacturing organization has offices at multiple locations across North America and Europe. A new Change Management process has been in place for the last 6 months. This process consolidates the disparate Change Management processes at the different locations. Things have been going well, with reports showing that all the KPIs are within their expected ranges.

Change Management policies were put in place as part of the overall design. They are:

y There is zero tolerance for unauthorized Change.

y The Change Management process must be aligned with business needs.

y Accountability and responsibility for Changes must be assigned.

y Duty controls must be segregated, that is, build and test.

y There will be a single focal point for Changes.

y Evaluating the Risk of all Changes that Impact Service capability will drive the level of authorization required.

y People who are not authorized to make a Change will not have access to the production environment.

y Change Management will integrate with other Service Management processes to establish the traceability of Change, detect unauthorized Change, and identify Change-related Incidents.

y Change windows will be enforced.

The new Change Management system was set up with an elaborate authorization process that involved four authorization levels. A scheme was set up to categorize Changes into eight Risk levels, and the Risk level mapped the Change to the appropriate authorization level. There was a lot of in-fighting about what constituted which Risk level, but all stakeholders eventually agreed to the scheme and signed off on it. The higher the Risk and, consequently, the authority level signoff, the longer the process takes because the “higher authority” consists of higher-level roles in the organization.

In the last 2 weeks, the organization has started to complain that critical business changes are taking too long to implement, leading to business loss. As the process manager, you are responsible for investigating this issue and coming up with a solution.


a) You recall that the policies state that the process must be aligned with business needs. Clearly, to eliminate lost business, something must be done to the process. You decide that if Risk is automatically reduced for business changes, this will mean that the authorization level is lower, leading to a faster turnaround time. You immediately institute this Change to the process.

b) You engage with the business to find out the nature of the Changes that are not taking place in a timely way. You suspect that some Changes could be recategorized as standard Changes, eliminating any delays. In addition, you want to ensure that Risks are correctly assessed because overestimating the Risk will slow down the implementation of Changes. For example, the business need might override the IT perspective, but this might not be reflected in the Risk calculation.

c) You decide to change the reporting structure so that you can better see if the Risk to authority level mapping is working, that approvals are happening in a timely way, and that the implementation is happening on schedule. You schedule a meeting after 4 weeks to discuss the results of the investigation with the stakeholders to see if any adjustments are required for the process. You know that you should never change a process without measurement data to justify it.



d) You think the mapping of Risk to authority level is working well. The problem is the turnaround time of the people who have to sign off the Change. You find out which individuals are holding up authorization, and let them know that if they cannot respond in a timely way, they will have to be removed from the authorization list.

Answers:

a) 0: Distracter. You cannot arbitrarily reduce Risk just to reduce the authorization level.

b) 5: Most Correct. Engaging with the business to identify the pain points is very good, the use of standard Changes is good, and investigating Risk levels is good.

c) 3: Second Best. Changing the reporting structure is good, but waiting to engage with the stakeholders for 4 weeks is not.

d) 1: Third Best. Removing people from the authorization list because of a lack of performance is not acceptable.

You are the SACM Manager. The CIO comes to you to tell you he is about to cancel the project to create a CMS. This is because he was recently at a conference where he discussed the project with his peers who strongly advised him not to go ahead. Their experience, which seemed to have been gained over several years, was that this type of project was a drain on money and resources.

Several other CIOs recognized that the overall concept was good. To serve the organization well and improve the image of Service Management, they invited some other stakeholders, such as Application Development, to the table to cover their needs as well.

You are somewhat alarmed to hear this because you have already asked the business for its requirements. As a result, the project is on their radar now, and the CIO would not want to disappoint the stakeholders.

Your organization has an inviolable principle, which is that each project over a specific dollar threshold must demonstrate, through metrics, an ROI within a year. This is another factor that is causing the CIO to doubt the prudence of starting the CMS project.

In all fairness, the CIO has given you a week to come up with reasons not to cancel the project and a plan to be followed if he agrees not to cancel it.

Q1. What do you do?

a) Far from scaling back your plan, you initiate an immediate exercise to sell the CMS to as many stakeholders as you can. You feel that you need to overpower the objection by getting potential stakeholders to quantify the benefits of a CMS and give you input that will help answer the ROI question. Naturally, you will provide the CMDB with relationships as part of what you deliver; it would not be a CMS without one!

b) Scale down your plan to use an existing asset register to give the functionality of a CMDB. You suggest that this be done quietly, so that no other potential stakeholders try to influence the project. This option will give immediate results because using an asset register as a CMDB will allow Changes to be logged against the CIs as well as Incidents, Problems, and so on. In your heart, you know that this will provide huge benefits to IT. Additionally, you believe that the budget for this scaled-down project will be under the dollar limit where projects have to show an ROI within a year.

c) Scale down your plan to use an existing asset register to give the functionality of a CMDB, but also plan to implement relationships and CIs that define Services, applications, and so on. You have an outline plan to investigate the cost of outages in the last year and extrapolate how much would be saved by having a CMDB that is able to show Impacts through relationships, for both Change Management and Incident Management. You also feel that you should be able to provide the business with a dashboard that shows the health of the



Services. You would do this by displaying the CIs that constitute a Service and its relationships. This will help ensure that the business is not disappointed with the project.

d) Frankly, you have been reading about some horrible situations where everything the CIO said is true. You decide not to fight a losing battle, and figure out ways to redeploy your staff so that at least your political potency will not be impacted when the axe falls.

Answer:

a) 1: Third Best. A CMS is good but overkill for the situation, and it makes it much more difficult to show a positive ROI within a year.

b) 3: Second Best. There is a reasonable chance of showing a positive ROI. However, without relationships, there is no ability to conduct a Risk assessment and so on.

c) 5: Most Correct. This is the best answer.

d) 0: Distracter. This is a distracter.

Knowledge Management has been implemented at A to Z Corporation for 6 months. A to Z is a leading engineering company with a great deal of the technical information needed for a variety of tasks residing in different groups. A lot of effort went into determining how knowledge could be captured, and the concept of Knowledge Engineers was introduced. The people given this role had a roaming brief to find pockets of knowledge within the corporation, which they would then “extract” and codify into the SKMS. The extraction process involved interviews that would cut into the working day of people, often putting them behind in their engineering projects. This caused some resentment toward the project.

The Knowledge Manager found that KPIs for Knowledge Management are not easy to implement. For the first 4 months, the principal KPI – the number of SKMS accesses – was trending up very satisfactorily. This was attributed to information being put into the SKMS and information being found by users seeking answers. In the fifth month, the KPI dipped markedly, but this was attributed to two things:

y Most Knowledge Engineers were reassigned to other jobs.

y Users who had benefitted from the information in the SKMS in the previous 4 months did not need to access the information because they had retained it from their previous access.

An area of focus was the use of the SKMS by IT itself. IT embraced the concept of the SKMS and populated it with a large number of Workarounds, Standard Operating Procedures, and so on. A survey of the Service Desk found that its use of the SKMS was increasing, and that it was delighted with Knowledge Management.

It is, consequently, a shock to hear from the CIO that he was publicly humiliated at this morning’s executive meeting by the VP of Engineering’s assessment that Knowledge Management had been a complete waste of his people’s time, and that the engineering project slippage was the fault of IT.

Q1. What do you think was the Problem, and what should be the course of action?

a) There is no fundamental problem with the implementation of Knowledge Management. The SKMS was obviously very useful to people, as indicated by the number of accesses. It’s typical for engineering to find someone else to blame when it starts to fall behind on projects, so it’s not really a surprise that engineering now blames IT. The CIO needs to push back more and reference the fact that the Service Desk finds the SKMS incredibly useful.

b) To make what is wrong with Knowledge Management clearer, a user survey should be conducted. This



will determine the issues that users have with the SKMS, perhaps revealing a lack of DIKW modeling and, consequently, diminishing the effectiveness of the SKMS. The survey will also reveal any training issues that users have, enabling new training courses, WebEX sessions, FAQs, and so on to be developed.

c) It’s pretty clear that the process must somehow be faulty. The DIKW model might not have been implemented correctly by Knowledge Engineers. So, users are not finding value in using the SKMS, which is why usage is dropping. Initiating a redesign of the process will ensure that DIKW is performed appropriately. Then everyone, including engineering, will see the benefits of Knowledge Management.

d) You should engage with the management to ensure that the objectives of Knowledge Management are understood and agreed. The scope of the original project might have been too broad, and expectations could have been accidentally set by the Knowledge Engineers during their interviews (trying to do too much too soon). Identify stakeholders, determine their requirements, and ensure that they understand and buy into exactly what it is you can deliver with the SKMS. Try to reuse the information that exists in the SKMS to reduce any interaction with the engineering department.

Answer:

a) 0: Distracter. This is a distracter.

b) 3: Second Best. The survey does not get their requirements; it assumes that DIKW is the issue.

c) 1: Third Best. This is internally focused and assumes that the process is faulty.

d) 5: Most Correct. This is the correct answer because it deals with stakeholder involvement.


The Royal needs to understand the issues related to implementing Releases.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Complete the table in your Workbook to show the pros and cons of whether a Release should

be big bang, phased, push, or pull.

Sample Answer:

Design Options

Pros Cons

Big bang

Everyone is on the same level (only one level to support).

Potentially less work.

An issue will affect everyone.

Phased Only part of the user community will be affected if there is a Problem.

Two levels to support; potential confusion about which level a user is on.

Potentially more work.



Design Options

Pros Cons

Push

IT is in control of when users get the Release.

Which level a user is on is known to the Service Desk.

Must have access to push targets (PCs could be powered down).

Accurate configuration is mandatory and can be difficult to get.

Pull The Release is not forced upon users.May be difficult to get laggards to pull the Release, meaning that there can be two levels to support for longer.

Q2. Give two reasons why baselines should be used to assist Release and Deployment.

Sample Answer:Release and Deployment models are an important tool that avoids reinvention for each Release and Deployment. Baselines help you decide what should be in the model. Provide the starting point – it is possible to retrench back to it; and the end point – it enable you to ensure that the deployment has been successfully completed.

Q3. What elements should be in the model?

(Hint: Think about how you know the Release is successful, what infrastructure was used, and so on. You need to build and test the Release, decide what has to be done to pass the Release on to operations, decide on the use of other transition capabilities to execute the build and deployment, and identify who is responsible for individual components of the Release.)

Sample Answer:

Release and Deployment Models

Release structure – the overall structure for building a Release Package and the target environments

Exit and entry criteria, including mandatory and optional deliverables, and documentation for each stage

Controlled environments required to build and test the Release for each Release level

The roles and responsibilities of each CI at each Release level

Supporting systems, tools, and procedures to document and track all Release and Deployment activities

Handover activities and responsibilities for executing the handover and acceptance of each stage of Release and Deployment

Automation of the delivery, distribution, installation, build, and configuration audit procedures, where appropriate, to reduce expensive manual steps

Packaging and building the Release Package so that it can be backed out or remediated, if required

Using Configuration Management procedures, the CMS, and the DML to manage and control components during the build and deployment activities, for example, to verify prerequisites, co-requisites and post-installation requests


ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and inter-process interfaces of the Release and Deployment

process.



Sample Answer:

Triggers Inputs Outputs Interfaces

The Release process starts with the receipt of an approved RFC to deploy a production-ready Release Package. Deployment starts with the receipt of an approved RFC to deploy a Release Package to a target deployment group or environment, such as a Business Unit, customer group, or Service Unit. This triggers the deployment process.

A primary input for Release and Deployment Management is an authorized RFC. Other inputs include:

y “Authorized RFC y Service Level Packages

(SLP) y SDP, including Service

model and SAC y IT Service continuity

plan and related business continuity plan

y Service Management and operations plans and standards

y Technology and procurement standards and catalogues

y Acquired Service Assets and components and their documentation

y Build models and plans y Environment

requirements and specifications for build, test, Release, training, disaster recovery, pilot, and deployment

y Release Policy and Release design from Service Design

y Release and deployment models including template plans

y Exit and entry criteria for each stage of Release and deployment”


Some key outputs of the Release process are:

y “New, changed or retired services

y Release and deployment plan

y Updates to change management for the release and deployment activities

y Service notification

y Notification to service catalogue management to update the service catalogue with the relevant information about the new or changed service

y New tested service capability and environment

y New or changed service management documentation

y SLA, underpinning OLAs and contracts

y New or changed service reports

y Tested continuity plans

y Complete and accurate configuration item list with an audit trail for the CIs in the release package and also the new or changed service and infrastructure configurations

y Updated service capacity plan aligned to the relevant business plans

y Baselined release package – checked in to DML and ready for future deployments

y Service transition report”Quoted text source is ITIL® Service Lifecycle Suite 2nd Edition, 2011. Copyright © AXELOS Limited 2014. Material is reproduced under license from AXELOS.

Release and Deployment Management interfaces with:

y Service Design

y Transition Planning and Support

y Change Manage-ment

y Service Asset and Configu-ration manage-ment

y Service Validation and Testing



The Royal has to implement a large number of Changes within a short time. Some of the Changes are to correct defects in existing Services while others implement a variety of new types of functionality, ranging from minor improvements to completely new, major additions.

The Release and Deployment process has been neglected, and you need to revamp the approach to Release and Deployment.

The first step is to come up with a way to classify Releases. A Release Unit is defined as that portion of a Service or IT infrastructure that is normally released together.

Scenario-Based Activity 1Q1. Using the given table in your Workbook, come up with a scheme for Release Unit numbering that

distinguishes between the different types of listed Changes and note down the characteristics of each type of Release Unit (include how frequently you would expect Releases of these types).

Complete the table by entering each of the following types of Changes in the example column:

y Single Web page update

y Change to Web site navigation at the home page level (highest level of drill down)

y Bug fix to application

y Small enhancement plus bug fixes

y New desktop tool

y New business service

Sample Answer:

Release Unit

Numbering Scheme

Characteristics Example

Major V1

Major enhancement, potential need for substantial training, consolidated bug fixes

New desktop tool

New business service

Change to Web site navigation at home page level (highest level of drill down)

Minor V1.1

Minor enhancement, less need for training, for example, FAQ and bug fixes

Small enhancement plus bug fixes

Single Web page update

Fix/Emergency V1.1.1Immediate fix required (cannot wait to be in major or minor)

Bug fix to application



Because the Royal has decided to support Service Transition, it will have to assign some roles to individuals. It should define the main roles and responsibilities at the points of handover to ensure that everyone understands their role and level of authority and those of others involved in the Release and Deployment process.

Scenario-Based Activity 2Q1. Complete the following table to show which of the following roles is important to the releases

and what roles they would be responsible for.

The releases are: y A release to implement self-service kiosks for guests so they can book massages, spa visits, and so on

y A release to modify the existing hotel Web site to include the same capability of the kiosks but through a guest’s PC

y A release to update special offers on the hotel Web site (altering Web pages directly has proven to be error prone, so a small Service has been created to make it easy and secure to change this part of the Web site)

y A release to update the local tax rates on hotel rooms (this has to be done to comply with tax laws)

y A release to apply fixes to Problems found in the worldwide install base of the accounting package used at the Royal

The roles are: y Development Manager

y Kiosk Infrastructure Manager

y Kiosk Software Manager (outsourced)

y Operations Manager

y Change Manager

y Test Manager

y Service Desk Manager

y Database Administrator

Sample Answer:

DevelopmentControlled Test

Release to Production

Production

Object Released from Accepted by Authority to release to live

Accepted and supported by

Kiosk service

Development Manager

Kiosk Infrastructure Manager

Kiosk Software Manager (outsourced)

Test Manager Change Manager Operations Manager



Web site functional improvement (extra Service bookings via PC)

Web developer Web site validation Change Manager Operations Manager


The Royal has been using a ticket-booking service, called EZtiks, as part of its strategy to use kiosks to provide new Services to its guests. EZtiks runs on the Royal’s kiosks, is branded for the Royal, and does all the processing. The Royal gets a cut of each ticket sale made through EZtiks.

A large change to EZtiks is coming up. The Change to the Service involves some “excitement factors,” such as the chance to get your order free through a “lottery,” which EZtiks feels should attract customers and differentiate its Service from that of other ticket-booking agencies. EZtiks has been implementing Service Design for the past few months. Because customers will be using the ticket-booking Service directly, EZtiks’ management is nervous about the usability of the Service. The management realizes that customers such as the Royal can switch to another ticket-booking agency, so it wants the Change to be smooth.

The suspicion is that there will be quite an increase in the workload of EZtik’s Service Desk because of the new Service. Response time will be critical, so to keep a check on it, monitoring needs to be changed. While there has been a lot of work to understand the popularity of the new Service, there is a level of nervousness about whether the Service will be responsive when many users try to book tickets simultaneously.

When there is trouble with the new Service, it is not clear who will deal with it within the EZtiks organization (expertise and human resources). EZtiks’ management also wants to know if it can respond to trouble calls in a timely way.

Finally, EZtiks’ finance department is wondering if the new Service will make money. Particularly, it needs to know how many free tickets EZtiks can afford to give away — this will be driven in part by the cost of the Service itself.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. For each of the test models given in the table in your Workbook, give an example of where it

could be used in the scenario, and invent a test condition and test mechanism to perform the test. As an example, one has been completed for you.

Sample Answer:

Level of Test Service V-Model Level Test Condition Test Mechanism

Service contract test Level 1 – customer/business needs

Less than 1% customer complaints about usability

Post-implementation statistics

Service requirements test

Level 2 – Service requirements

User interface navigation always via mouse

Service acceptance test – check all navigation

Service test Level 1 – customer/business needs Budget within target Financial reporting

Service level test Level 2 – Service requirements

Response times less than 1 second when under load

Service test – use of simulator to load up the Service



Operations test Level 3 – Service solutionService Desk able to answer 95% of usage questions within 1 minute

Operations test – simulate a user question storm


ActivityQ1. List the triggers, inputs, outputs, and interfaces of the Service Validation and Testing process.



James, with Harry’s approval, is considering buying another hotel and merging the two. There would be a new merged IT organization that could take advantage of the situation to implement Service Transition appropriately.You have interviewed the IT department of the two hotels and have made the following notes on each:

1. The Royal

Resources to execute transition activities are allocated in a haphazard way, so some projects have more than they really need while others miss deadlines because of a lack of resources. Some jobs seem to be done twice over while others are not done until an emergency occurs. Change authorization is quite efficient and there are only three levels of authorization for Changes. However, all Changes have to go through the entire process. So, to mitigate this, there are five categories of Changes. Impact assessment occurs because of the combined wisdom of Change Advisory Board (CAB) members. Overall, the feeling is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Shift Manager. Asset Management is done quite well. Configuration data is within individual departments. Release activities, including testing, are performed by Application Development. Acceptance testing is done by Quality Assurance (QA). Then, a Release is promoted into production without any further delay. Training is not done consistently, so sometimes, users are not able to use the new or changed Service effectively. The situation is aggravated because, often, the Service Desk has not been briefed appropriately. No work is done to “tidy up” after the Release, which has left expensive assets unutilized. The users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, are not always happy with what IT delivers – embarrassingly, this has been revealed at senior management meetings. Development has made enhancements to Services that they thought were a good idea, but when delivered, the users of a Release, for example, the different departments/divisions of the hotel, did not see value in them. Not much reporting is done by transition.


As in the Royal, there is little control over resources to execute transition. Roles in transition are clear but different from those in the Royal. Change is also done quite well, but with four levels of authorization supported by three categories of Changes. The hotel has a small number of standard Changes. Similar to the Royal, the sentiment is that Changes take too long to go through the process. Emergency Changes are authorized by the Head of Operations. Asset Management is done, and the asset register is used for Configuration Management. No audits are done apart from what the Asset Management people find as they execute their tasks. This has sometimes led to extended Service restoration times. Release is essentially done by Application Development, and operations testing is done just before the Release goes into production. Training is done well, and the Service Desk is usually briefed on new Releases. Again, no attention is given to the retirement of assets when a new Release is implemented. The performance and availability of Services



have been less than expected when going live on a number of occasions. There have been instances where IT thought that the level of performance was not critical, and so did not do rigorous testing. This resulted in a loss of revenue for the business. Reports from all areas of transition are produced regularly and are in tabular form, providing all the detail that the management could want to see.




y Release and Deployment – institute an R&D process to involve operations much earlier, have a consistent approach to training, consider pilots and ELS, and institute a post-deployment retirement phase.

y Service Validation and Testing – separate testing from build/development; use the Service V-Model to ensure a Service Contract test and a Service Level test as well as the others.


A new entrant in the Internet concert-ticket-booking business has been adding Services to its portfolio aggressively. The business has been growing steadily since it added the functionality of a “lottery,” where customers stand a chance to get their tickets for free. However, the Release did not go smoothly because there were usability issues — statistics showed that a larger-than-anticipated number of users did not complete their transactions — and response time degraded alarmingly under load. Fortunately, the load never climbed to a point where everything stopped; it was just responsive enough for customers to complete their purchases.

A new initiative is now being put forward. When there is a “hot” ticket, the front-of-the-line functionality will allow customers to opt to pay more and be serviced ahead of those not wishing to pay a premium. The Release will also include some minor usability enhancements to the existing ticket service, as well as a fairly significant extension that allows tickets to be purchased at a cinema. The interface has to be altered to fit the kiosk format — screen and print — but the back-end processing is the same. Because the company does not have kiosk coding expertise, they contracted out some of the interface programming to an offshore company.

Two weeks before the release is due to be deployed, testing reveals that the kiosk functionality is not reliable. The Problem seems to be in the outsourced kiosk coding, but the offshore company is blaming it on incorrect levels of the Java Virtual Machine on the kiosks. In field trials, kiosk ticket purchases were completed within the planned time in 85% of the cases. However, on retrying, all worked successfully.

The entire Release, that is, all the components mentioned above, has been tested using the Service V-Model. Now, it appears that it cannot go ahead.

You are the Release and Deployment Manager.


a) Recommend that the Release be split up into components and retested. The business needs the front-of-the-line functionality to maintain its competitive edge, but ticket ordering is too risky because 85% availability is too low. Ensure that SPI testing is done extensively when the kiosk functionality is ready for Release. This is because the experience with the offshore developer might indicate that its responsiveness to Problems might not be very good.

b) Check that all the tests were in accordance with the Service V-Model, particularly the SPI to show that due diligence had been performed. Initiate an immediate inquiry to see how long it will take to check the level



of the Java Virtual Machine on all the kiosks. It might be possible to include an update to that component in the Release.

c) Stop the Release from being deployed. The finger-pointing by the offshore developer must be dealt with because support is clearly lacking. Enough time to test the Release is not available, so if in doubt, go back to square 1 and start over.

d) While there is no reason why the front-of-the-line functionality cannot be released because the testing was done in conjunction with that of all other components, there is a possibility that some dependencies will not be apparent. So, the new Release Package needs to be retested. With respect to the failure of the kiosk functionality tests, get the input of the business immediately. While 85% availability is low in IT terms, only the business can judge whether it is acceptable.

Answera) 3: Second Best. That 85% is not good enough is an assumption. There are potentially invalid inferences

about the outsourcer.

b) 1: Third Best. This is internally focused.

c) 0: Distracter. This is a distracter.

d) 5: Most Correct. This is the correct answer. Stakeholder involvement is necessary.

A dispute has arisen in the IT department.

The output of Service Design is the SDP, which contains many details related to the transition and operation of a new or changed Service. Some of the components of the transition of the SDP are:

y Build policies, plans, and requirements, including Service and component build plans, specifications, controls and environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms, including platforms

y Testing policy, plans, and requirements, including test environments, technologies, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms

y Testing, which must include:

o Functional testing

o Component testing, including all suppliers, contracts, and externally provided supporting products and Services

o User acceptance and usability testing

o System compatibility and integration testing

o Service and component performance and capacity testing

o Resilience and continuity testing

o Failure, alarm, and event categorization, processing, and testing

o Service and component security and integrity testing

o Logistics, Release, and distribution testing

o Management testing, including control, monitoring, measuring, and reporting, together with backup, recovery, and batch scheduling and processing



y Deployment policy, Release policy, plans, and requirements, including logistics, deployment, roll-out, staging, deployment environments, cultural change, organizational change, technology, tools, processes, approaches, methods, and mechanisms, including all platforms, knowledge, skills, and competence transfer and development, supplier and contract transition, and data migration and conversion

The organization has appointed a manager for each of the following: Release and Deployment, Service Validation and Testing, and Evaluation. Each wants to have first access to the SDP when it becomes available to Service Transition. The IT Director does not know how to handle this situation. You are an ITIL consultant on contract with the organization.

Q1. What advice do you offer?

a) The Service Transition part of the SDP is written by staff working in Transition. The Release and Deployment Manager should attend to the build policy, plans, and requirements, including Service and component build plans, specifications, controls and environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms, including all platforms. The Service Testing and Validation Manager should attend to the testing policy, plans, and requirements, including test environments, technology, tools, processes, methods, and mechanisms. Testing must include such items as functional testing, component testing — including all suppliers, contracts, and externally provided supporting products and Services; user acceptance and usability testing, system compatibility and integration testing, and so on. The Evaluation Manager should set stakeholder expectations correctly and provide effective and accurate information to Change Management to make sure that Changes that adversely affect Service capability and introduce Risk are not transitioned unchecked. Each manager should work with his/her team to develop the appropriate section of the SDP, and these efforts should be in parallel.

b) The Release and Deployment Manager should receive the SDP first. This is because the build has to precede any testing, and in any case, by definition, building the test environments is part of Release and Deployment Management. Release and Deployment Management needs a head start so that everything is ready for testing.

c) The Release and Deployment Manager and the Service Validation and Test Manager should receive the SDP at the same time but before the Evaluation Manager needs to see it. This is because while build has to precede any testing, building the test environments and test scripts can proceed in parallel with the build. Evaluation occurs after the Service is live, so the process definitely does not need the SDP first.

d) If any of the managers should see the SDP first, it should be the Evaluation Manager. This is because Service Design or Service Changes should be evaluated before being transitioned. Consequently, there would be little point in investing time and effort in Release and Deployment and Service Validation and Testing before evaluating the Service Design or Service Change. The most appropriate solution is to let the three managers see the SDP as it is received from Service Design, because the three processes can work in their own area at the same time.

Answera) 0: Distracter. This is a distracter. Service Transition does not write the transition part of the SDP.

b) 1: Third Best. Release and Deployment does not need a head start on writing test scripts and so on. By definition, building test environments is not part of Release and Deployment.

c) 3: Second Best. Evaluation takes place before and after a Service is live.

d) 5: Most Correct. This is the correct answer.



6.2 MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMITMENT

BrainstormQ1. Discuss the importance of communication during Service Transition.

Sample Answer:It is important to communicate and share information for any Service Transition Change process. This type of communication is directly proportional to the magnitude of the Change. In addition, you must clearly provide the rationale behind the Change, the benefits and effects expected of the Change, and the plan for its implementation.

However, you must communicate information, effects, and benefits to the right audience. At times, you might not be in a position to reveal all information about all Changes. In these situations, you must admit that you are not able to give all the details of the Change, and provide a reason for not sharing the information; for example, security considerations. Before planning the communication, it is very important that you ascertain people’s commitment.

Q2. What are the key elements that you must consider when planning for effective communication?

Sample Answer:Some key elements for effective communication are:

y Ownership

y Style

y Delivery mechanisms

y Skills and training competencies

y Internal and external audiences

y Staff involvement at all levels, including stakeholder and operations

y Timescales

6.3.1 ORGANIZATIONAL AND SERVICE TRANSITION ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

ActivityQ1. Give some examples of key questions that should be posed to help identify the culture of parties

involved in Service Transition.

Sample Answer:


Language Is there a common language or shared language(s)? Does the language inhibit and reinforce boundaries or facilitate effective change and knowledge transfer? Is the organizational language style mostly formal or informal?

Change Does the organization appear to resist change or is it constantly evolving?

Communication

What are the preferred modes of communication? What is the content and style of internal communications? Where does official and unofficial communication happen? Are communication channels open and democratic or closed and hierarchical? How is knowledge and experience shared? Are rumours/gossip prevalent?




Knowledge flowHow do people describe the way knowledge and information is transferred around the organization? How easy is it to find what you need to know, when you need it? How easy is it to find the right person with the right experience?

CommunitiesAre there identifiable ‘communities’ within the organization? Is there a community leader, e.g. problem management community leader? What is the structure and function of these communities?

NetworksAre an individual’s networks well developed, on the whole? What kind of information is exchanged by these people?

Working Environments

Does the working environment create the right conditions for knowledge transfer and integrated working, e.g. close proximity physically and/or electronic tools? How are desks configured? How are communal areas used?

HistoryHow does the organization see its own history? Is it valued and used or quickly forgotten? How does the organization value past experiences, e.g. do people still refer back to their old company after a merger?

MeetingsAre meetings seen as productive? How are they managed? Are they effective? Does everyone feel safe to speak? How is opinion or criticism handled? How is output captured or taken forward?

Rewards and motivations

How are individuals/teams rewarded or recognized for sharing knowledge/information and experience? What motivates people in the organization? What else might be blocking engagement of an individual/team, e.g. other major change, major incident handling?

TimeWhat are individuals’, teams’ and the organizational attitudes to time, e.g. busy or relaxed; punctual, rigid and unchanging or flexible?”


6.3.2 PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

BrainstormQ1. List the points that the stakeholders and IT teams involved in Change Management must know

to implement a Change effectively.


Q2. List the outputs from the Service Strategy and Service Design Lifecycle stages that might assist in the organizational Change.




6.3.5 METHODS, PRACTICES, AND TECHNIQUES USED TO MANAGE CHANGE

Critical ThinkingQ1. Describe the core challenge and desired behavior for each of the leading Change steps mentioned

in the Kotter’s approach to Change table given below.

Sample Answer:

“Leading change: eight Steps Core challenge Desired behavior

1. Establish a sense of urgency

Get people ‘out of the bunker’ and ready to move.

People start telling each other, ‘Let’s go, we need to change things!’

2. Create a guiding coalition

Get the right people in place with the trust, emotional commitment, and teamwork to guide the difficult change process.

A group powerful enough to guide large changes influences others to accept change, and one that works well together

3. Develop a vision and strategy

Get the guiding team to create the right vision and strategies to guide action in all of the remaining stages of change. This requires moving beyond number crunching to address the creative and emotional components of vision.

The guiding team develops the right vision and strategy for the change effort

4. Communicate the change vision (and, communicate it over and over again)

Get as many people as possible acting to make the vision a reality.

People begin to buy in to the change and this shows in their behavior.

5. Empower broad-based action

Remove key obstacles that stop people from acting on the vision.

More people feel able to act, and do act, on the vision.

6. Create short-term wins

Produce enough short-term (quick) wins fast enough to energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics and build momentum for the effort

Momentum builds as people try to fulfil the vision, while fewer and fewer resist change.

7. Consolidate gains and produce more change

Continue with wave after wave of change, not stopping until the vision is a reality – no matter how big the obstacles.

People remain energized and motivated to push change forward until the vision is fulfilled – fully realized.

8. Anchor new approaches in the culture

Create a supporting structure that provides roots for the new ways of operating.

New and winning behavior continues despite the pull of tradition, turnover of change leaders, etc.”




6.4 STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

DiscussionQ1. Who are the stakeholders likely to be affected by Change?

Sample Answer:

Those likely to be affected by Change are:

y “Sponsors of the service change, e.g. technology refresh

y Those affected by the service change or service transition

y Suppliers of goods or services

y Service management teams involved in the new or changed service

y Customers or consumers who will be affected by the service transition or the new or changed service

y Relationship management staff

y Internal and/or external audit

y Information security

y Fraud unit

y Risk management

y Shareholders, management and staff of the organization

y Labour groups/trade unions/works councils

y Political or regulatory bodies

y The wider community, such as the general public

y Project and programme management teams delivering the projects within the overall service lifecycle”


6.5 GROUP/INDIVIDUAL EXERCISES

In an earlier exercise, a consultant analyzed a plan to merge the operations of two hotels. The Royal has decided to go ahead and wants to ensure that the organizational Change goes smoothly.

Many people will have to be briefed and prepared for the Change. Also, there are stakeholders who will need very considered handling to ensure that they are happy.

You are the Transition Manager. You must come up with a plan to make the transition a success from an organizational perspective. At this stage, you do not know the “players” from the other hotel, so you begin to plan based on the Royal but realizing that you will need to modify the plan when you know more about the other hotel.

Scenario-Based Activity 1Q1. List some ways that you consider are the most important to convey the message at the Royal.



Sample Answer:Some of the ways that are the most important to convey the message at the Royal are:

y Large workshops – to deliver a clear and consistent message to the target audience on the overall Service Transition approach; this will generally be at the start of any communication strategy to build understanding, ownership, and even excitement across the teams.

y Organization newsletter – to reinforce any messages already delivered; however, care needs to be taken that this approach is used as reinforcement rather than as the first time that employees may have seen the communication cascade.

y Training sessions – as part of Service Transition, roles or processes will probably change; this requires targeted training, which should be planned giving sufficient time for employees to get to grips with any new ways of working.

y Team meetings – giving support to team leaders from the Service Transition team, who will ensure, at their weekly meetings, that they can reinforce any messages. It is at this lower-level meeting that employees may be better understood the questions because people will feel within their own comfort zone, as they are used to this method of communication with the colleagues they work with daily.

y Face to face – key stakeholders make time to visit staff in their work environment (floor walks), set a positive example of the support from the senior management, and allow employees to ask questions pertinent to themselves.

y Q&A feedback postings – boards or mailboxes, where employees can raise anonymous questions and receive feedback on any concerns they may have.

y Corporate intranet

y Reinforcement memos – consistent memos from the senior stakeholders, reinforcing key information or giving an update of the implementation activities, will keep Service Transition alive for those people not perhaps actually involved in all stages.

y Posters/roadmaps – good-quality, colorful communications at the end of office floors, showing implementation activities, progress, or general updates, are a positive way of keeping communications alive and delivering a consistent message.

y Pay advice notes – key communication attached to pay slips to ensure a practical, 100% communication update.

y Z-cards/encapsulated reference cards – small, credit-card-sized documents holding key information and expected to be carried by staff in their wallets or purses.

Q2. List some ways that you consider are the most important points that need to be understood about the Change at the Royal.

Sample Answer: Some important points that need to be understood about the Change at the Royal are:

y What are the constraints – type, range, and flexibility – regarding time slots, equipment, and staff and supplier availability?

y What is the planned timescale?

y Who or what can help in planning the implementation?

y What skills and measures should be considered?

y How will “normal” life be affected?

y What will the consequential changes be, for example, to business methods?



Q3. List some ways that you consider are the most potent to overcome resistance to Change at the Royal.

Sample Answer: y Loss of control – when you move people from a process with which they are familiar to one they know

little about, they will experience a feeling of losing control. This can be overcome by involving them in the decision-making, even allowing them to make decisions for themselves. It is essential to inform people of what choices they have, even if they are extremely limited. Managers should anticipate who is likely to oppose the Change and decide how to win them over. A detailed explanation of the business benefit and the ROI will strike a sense of Urgency and awareness of how the new Service Transition will support the business needs.

y Excessive personal uncertainty – the first question most people will ask is “What is this going to mean for my job?” This can be answered effectively by explaining the need for, and the implication of, the Change at both a business and a personal level, including the often-difficult issue of estimating how long the period of uncertainty will last. Honesty is the best policy.

y Avoid surprises – people like to be given the opportunity to think through the implications of Change to/for them. Springing new ideas on them will create skepticism.

y The difference effect – people build identities around many facets of their work – their role, the job, the building, the corporate name – it gives them a sense of tradition. Managers should only change what they must, keeping familiar symbols, wherever possible.

y Loss of face – people dislike moving from a position of competence to one of incompetence, which can often happen when new processes, systems, and ways of working are introduced. Managers can alleviate this problem by acknowledging the person’s competence under the old regime and letting them participate in deciding the Change process. This can also be done by allowing joint responsibility for personal objective setting. This will generate early engagement as the Change transitions.

y Fear around competence – some people will believe that they cannot adopt new ways of working – “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” The solution is to give them the training/coaching they need before the new system is implemented, allowing them to have practice runs before the system goes live so that they prove their competence to themselves, creating enhanced levels of confidence. This can have the added bonus of increasing their desire for Change and personal responsibility for their career development.

y Ripples – the unexpected effect of an action taken in one area on another. Managers would be naïve to think that planned Change is trouble free; sometimes, it is impossible to accurately predict the effect one Change will have on another part of the organization. During the planning phase, people should be encouraged to think widely and divergently, considering probable as well as improbable possibilities when attempting to predict outcomes. This catastrophe planning can help minimize the ripple effect.

y Increase in workload – change frequently results in more work. If this is the reality, it should be acknowledged and rewarded, if possible.

y Past resentments – if the proposed Change is associated with an individual or organization with whom the person has a grievance, the person will resist the change. By allowing them to air their resentments, managers will have the opportunity to remove or repair them.

y Real threats – there are times when Change is going to have a negative impact on the individual, and people are justified in resisting. Pretending it is going to be all right does not help; managers need to act first and act fast by talking with people as soon as possible and involving them in the solution.



Dealing with stakeholders is a key consideration to ensure that an organizational Change goes well. Harry, James, Dimitri, Pap, Fujiyama-san, Dan, and Isobel are considered key individuals.

The stakeholder map shows the different areas of Service Transition that the various stakeholders are interested in.

Scenario-Based Activity 2Q1. In the table below, map the persons listed above to the stakeholder titles in the column to the

left and write their names in the second column. Then, determine which areas each stakeholder might be interested in.

Sample Answer:


Change

Interface with customers


Business Ownership Harry x x X X

Management James x x X X X

Finance Fujiyama-san x x X

Customers Guests x X

Project teams Dimitri, Pap x X

Staff Dan, Isobel X

Q2. Refer to the Power Impact matrix and complete the table given below.

Sample Answer:

Type of Involvement People

Key players – need strong buy-in Harry, James

Active consultation Fujiyama, Dimitri, Pap

Maintain interest Dan, Isobel

Keep informed Guests



Harry is dubious of most new initiatives. He is generally a hands-off person, but is unpredictable and can pull his support at any time. James is the mover and shaker at the Royal, and he initiated the entire idea of buying the other hotel. Fujiyama-san is not only a supporter, but is involved in the project, even outside of finance. Dan and Isobel don’t feel connected to the project. Dimitri and Pap consider the Change business as usual.

Scenario-Based Activity 3Q1. Consider the information given in the scenario, and use it to complete the commitment-planning

chart.

Sample Answer:

Key Player Not Committed No Resistance Helps It Happen Makes It Happen

Business Ownership O X

Management OX

Finance X O

Project teams O X

Staff O X


The CIO of your company attended a CIO seminar recently. The CIO initiated the implementation of ITIL v2 years ago, and it was hard to get it accepted by the staff.

The company has added a lot more technology to support the Services it offers to its customers, and ITIL has been instrumental in ensuring that IT has not failed when called upon. The effectiveness of ITIL processes is well understood by the CIO, but there really has not been any effort to ensure that the managers and staff understand.

At the seminar, the CIO was given a more in-depth understanding of ITIL (he had been briefed on it when it was released but not to any significant depth). He thinks that one area that the company can really use is CSI. He feels that if CSI had been in place, everyone would understand the contribution of ITIL to the success of the company as well as ensure that overall improvement was happening as a normal activity.

After careful contemplation, the CIO has decided to initiate an ITIL initiative. While the result is in no question in his mind, he also realizes that this will entail an organizational Change. He fears that the people who were not in favor earlier may well dig their heels in this time.

You have been brought in as an ITIL consultant to help get the project started. You explain that while the CIO’s fears are not without foundation, Service Transition provides some guidance on how to deal with organizational Change.

You want to develop a multistage plan to present to the CIO.

Q1. Which of the following options contains the appropriate items?

a) Conduct a survey with the IT people to understand their opinion of ITIL. Devise activities to ensure that all



the management is at least at a “helps-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure that all relevant IT managers are at the “maintain-interest” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach HR to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.

b) Hold a kick-off meeting with the senior members of the organizations’ staff. Devise activities to ensure that all the management is at least at a “make-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure all key stakeholders are at a “need-strong-buy-in” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach managers to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.

c) Interview the CEO to get his perspective. Devise activities to ensure that all staff are at least at a “active-consultation” commitment level. Ensure that all staff are at a “keep-informed” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach managers to counsel their staff to not act like children if they don’t like the Change.

d) Hold a kick-off meeting with the senior members of the organization’s staff, including key stakeholders who do not directly work with IT. Devise activities to ensure that all the management is at least at a “helps-it-happen” commitment level. Ensure that all staff are at a “keep-informed” level on the Power Impact matrix. Coach staff to embrace the emotional cycle of Change.

Answer:a) 1: Third Best. There is no need to conduct a survey because the opinion is already known from the

scenario. Ensuring that all the management is at least at the “helps-it-happen” commitment level is OK. We hope HR already knows about the emotional cycle of Change.

b) 3: Second Best. It does not include stakeholders at the kick-off stage. All the management does not need to be at the “make-it-happen” level of commitment. Coaching managers to embrace the emotional cycle of Change is not quite as good as coaching the staff.

c) 0: Distracter. Everything is wrong.

d) 5: Most correct. Inclusion of stakeholders is important. Even though the management could be considered to need to be at a level above “helps–it-happen,” the answer says it at least.

7.4.2 SPECIFIC ROLES

In the past, the Royal has experienced difficulties during the rollout of new applications and infrastructure. There have been numerous Incidents, outages, and delays. In at least one instance, it was necessary to revert to the old application for some time while the new application was reworked. Generally, upgrades and new Releases have unpredictable results.

The new kiosk service represents a new step forward. This is a customer-facing application and is tightly linked to the business. Although the Royal is still fairly immature with respect to ITIL processes, it recognizes that there is a need to implement key Service Transition processes, including SACM, Change Management, Release and Deployment Management, Service Validation and Testing, and so on. This will be a major Change for the IT organization, and it is important to understand all the roles, responsibilities, and interrelationships of these processes to be able to map them to existing IT staff.

Q1. Identify the key roles of Service Transition in the context of the kiosk service.

Sample Answer:This is a discussion about roles and not necessarily functions. Processes, by nature, are cross-functional. While all the roles that make sense are required in some form, there are numerous opportunities to combine some of the described roles. Several roles can be also be performed by a single individual. The factors include organization size, volume of activities, culture, maturity of processes, and so on. For example, it might not be necessary to have a separate Configuration Manager and Configuration Analyst. This is particularly true in the early stages of the process.



The most important distinction is that Service Test management and physical testing must always be performed by resources, independent of other functions or processes. There may also situations where “segregation of duties” must be enforced for legal compliance.


The Royal wishes to move forward with Service Transition, particularly to support the new kiosk service. It is a relatively small organization and constrained by resources.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. In an organization such as the Royal, which roles would you implement first?

Sample Answer:In any organization, there should be an overall plan for process implementation to achieve specific objectives. This can determine exactly which of the processes is implemented first. Similarly, the process implementations (or improvements) will have a plan.

Q2. Why will you implement these roles first?

Sample Answer:Generally, Service Transition processes impact all parts of the IT organization. They might also require Changes in long-held practices, especially in the technical areas. Potentially, resistance and organizational Change can be significant barriers. This is the reason why the key roles will be implemented first.

Q3. Would you implement all of them?

Sample Answer:No, only key roles will be implemented to begin the migration. There will be a need for awareness, education, mentoring, and training, so those aspects have priority.

Q4. What aspects of the roles would you focus on first?

Sample Answer:When the processes are operational, technical experts in the functional groups will be involved in the actual activities. Similarly, most large-scale deployments will utilize a project methodology and project teams. There will be a significant effort to define all the interfaces, roles, and responsibilities to avoid confusion and help prevent reverting to old habits.

Q5. Which roles might be phased in later?

Sample Answer:Some of the other roles within Service Transition might come into play later or be hosted outside. For example, these roles might be part of larger corporate initiatives, for example, the Performance and Risk Management or Knowledge Management process.




Two companies have recently merged and the senior management is aggressively looking to integrate and quickly receive the expected benefits of the synergy.

Here are some characteristics of the two companies:

y Company A:

o The IT department has a Help Desk, but with a history of issues with computing resources.

o There is limited ITIL experience.

o There are strong Purchase and Finance departments that have implemented a best-practice Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.

o There is strong Supplier Management and cost control.

y Company B:

o There is a smaller but more centralized IT department.

o There is some ITIL maturity.

o A Service Desk and limited Change Management have been implemented.

o Currently, there are an IT Asset Manager and mature processes, including central receiving for IT within operations.

The CIO of the new entity is under pressure to get short-term costs under control and develop a clear picture of the combined IT assets. Going forward, there is a need to understand how IT resources are supporting the business. Chargebacks for IT resources are also likely to be mandated.

Q1. What are your recommendations on key roles and how some of the responsibilities should be placed?

b) The IT Asset Manager should be reassigned to the Purchasing department and continue to do the same tasks. She should evaluate the existing systems for IT Asset Management.

c) The Purchasing and Finance groups within Company A already have a well-implemented solution and so should take the lead in Asset Management. IT assets and suppliers are just like the others and so can be easily handled within that tool and process. The strong ties to financials make chargebacks easy.

d) Leverage the existing IT Asset Manager and consider engaging departmental computing resources to extend the process. The Configuration Manager role also needs to be quickly established. Finally, appoint a Configuration Manager and develop a plan for the Change Management role.

e) ITIL has been recognized as part of the answer and because neither company has a real ITIL base, you should look to initiate a full Service Management initiative. This includes Service Transition. You should appoint a Service Transition Manager to lead this effort. By implementing SACM and Change Management, you will be positioned to achieve the objectives.

Answersa) 1: Third Best. The Asset Manager role could be placed anywhere and part of that role would be to evaluate

technology. However, it does not address the other requirements.

b) 0: Distracter. It only addresses assets, with no understanding of IT Services, relationships, and so on.

c) 5: Most Correct. Identifying and appointing some key process ownership roles will help with awareness and planning activities. This pragmatic approach helps with both short-term and long-term goals.



d) 3: Second Best. This involves a lot of Change and a long-term strategy. It would be more effective to identify the key roles and start small.

8.1.3 COLLABORATION

DiscussionQ1. How can you improve the collaboration process?

Sample Answer:You can improve the process of collaboration by implementing various Knowledge Services that enable you to improve productivity and streamline the complete process.

Q2. Name some Knowledge Services to improve collaboration.

Sample Answer: Some of the knowledge Services to improve the collaboration process are:

y E-mail

y Instant messaging

y Shared calendars and tasks

y Threaded discussions

y White-boarding

y Video or teleconferencing

8.1.4 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Royal has started to implement a number of ITIL-based processes, including the Service Desk, Incident Management, Request Management, Asset Management, Change Management, and Problem Management. A number of systems, including manual ones, support these processes. In addition, the technical groups have a variety of specialty tools. There is a recognized need to move forward with a CMS to achieve greater maturity. However, the management knows of a number of horror stories associated with CMDB implementations. Those projects grew out of control, generated huge costs, and had limited value or practical use.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Analyze some of the functional requirements for the CMS.

Sample Answer:Usually, selecting the CMDB solution needs to be done correctly the first time (and at the right time), and so needs to be carefully considered from all perspectives. It must not only be implementable in the short term but also be able to grow to become the core of Service Management. Some of the key items will be integration with existing tools (creating a coordinated, federated CMBD) and addressing management concerns about complexity/cost.

In addition, the CMS should provide:

y Sufficient security controls to limit access on a need-to-know basis.

y Support for CIs of varying complexity, for example, entire systems, releases, single hardware items, and software modules.



y Hierarchic and networked relationships between CIs: by holding information on the relationships between CIs, Configuration Management tools facilitate the impact of assessment of RFCs, easy addition of new CIs, and deletion of old CIs.

y Automatic validation of input data. For example, are all CI names unique?

y Automatic determination of all relationships that can be automatically established when new CIs are added.

y Support for CIs with different model numbers, version numbers, and copy numbers.

y Automatic identification of other affected CIs when any CI is the subject of an Incident report/record, Problem record, Known Error record, or RFC.

y Integration of Problem Management data within the CMS, or at least an interface from the CMS to any separate Problem Management databases that may exist.

y Automatic updating and recording of the version number of a CI if the version number of any component CI is changed.

y Maintenance of the history of all CIs (both a historical record of the current version, such as installation date, records of Changes, and previous locations, and of previous versions).

y Support for the management and use of Configuration Baselines (corresponding to definitive copies, versions, and so on), including support for reverting to trusted versions.

y Ease of interrogation of the CMS and good reporting facilities, including trend analysis (for example, the ability to identify the number of RFCs affecting particular CIs).

y Ease of reporting of the CI inventory to facilitate configuration audits.

y Flexible reporting tools to facilitate Impact analyses.

y The ability to show graphically the Configuration Models and maps of interconnected CIs and to input information about new CIs via such maps.

y The ability to show the hierarchy of relationships between parent and child CIs.




ActivityQ1. Discuss how your organization has used various technology solutions to support Service

Transition, such as Change Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management.

Sample Answer: Technology Solutions

Change Management

Uses CMS, version control tools, document-management systems, and so on to integrate with existing tools to provide security controls to limit access to CIs, and gives support for CIs with varying complexities. The software tool is capable of maintaining a CMS, which contains details of all CIs and their relationships.

SACM

Uses a Configuration Management tool to enable the automatic transfer of Configuration Management information from a software development Configuration Management System into the CMS.

Configuration Management tools are used to determine the installed hardware and software and the way applications are planned with infrastructure. In situations where the DML is not integrated with the CMDB, the organization considers automating the comparison of the contents of the DML with those of the CMDB.

Knowledge Management

Uses software that stores documents and records electronically for efficient management of data.


You are part of a large, successful organization. While your IT department is not fully ITIL compliant, it has some operational processes, such as Service Desk and Asset Management, in place. The department is mature and has a reputation for being Risk averse, although the CIO is trying to change that. There have been recent strategic planning and enterprise architecture initiatives. There are also some concerns about the number of IT tools being used to support IT and the different data sources. It is difficult to get a true view of any problems, especially from a business perspective. The concept of a CMDB is very attractive to many people. You are an independent consultant who has been asked for recommendations.

Q1. What type of recommendations will you suggest?

a) You suggest taking advantage of the organization’s strengths, fully examining all the existing data sources, and modeling them. Then, an appropriate technical solution can be found.

b) You suggest that the organization should pilot a CMDB in a limited area. This will allow an opportunity to determine requirements, test the technical solution, and move forward carefully.

c) You realize that this is not just a technical exercise. A more structured approach to Configuration Management is required. You recognize the need for additional processes, especially Change Management, to maintain the environment. This is a tool and process implementation project.

d) The existing data is well maintained and documented by the individual areas, which should act as guides for that data. Focusing on interfacing and making the data available provides an immediate return. Enhanced reporting provides an opportunity to prove the concept and gain momentum.



Answersa) 1: Third Best. While the CMDB must be planned/modeled, this scope is unrealistic. The CMDB will evolve

over time and cannot be completely modeled.

b) 3: Second Best. Starting small and determining requirements is a good idea; however, there are some additional, important components, beyond the technical, which must be addressed.

c) 5: Most Correct. This is a fairly obvious answer that recognizes the complexity.

d) 0: Distracter. This just makes the current situation worse.


A Service Transition implementation might have to deal with a wide range of Problems that vary from organization to organization. While it is overly simplistic, sometimes, a distinction can be between “technology issues” versus “people issues.”

Technical issues may include technical complexity, very short timescales, unrealistic expectations, restricted finances or resource availability, lack of test environments, inadequate tools, lack of technical skills, and so on.

People issues could include internal, political difficulties, staff disincentives, corporate culture, “difficult” people, or confrontational management styles, internal rivalries, and competitiveness, absence of anticipated skills sets, conflicting objectives, and so on.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. Which is more important — “people issues” or “technology issues?”

Sample Answer:

While most people might be more comfortable dealing with a particular type of issue, it is important to recognize both types.

Q2. Which do you think is “easier” to deal with, people issues or technology issues? Why?

Sample Answer:

People issues are more difficult to deal with than technical issues because issues relating to people are more complex than technical issues. While a manual for dealing with technical issues can be found, a manual for dealing with people issues is not available. This creates more problems in dealing with people issues.

Q3. How would you address people issues and technology issues?

Sample Answer:

You can use some common approaches/techniques to address people or technical issues. For example:

y Management support and commitment

y Adequate funding

y Clear deliverables/expectations

y Communication

y Quick wins — success breeds success

y Management of scope



y Escalation and dispute-resolution mechanisms

y Training/skills


While your medium-sized organization has had some success in implementing Service Operation processes, you are the newly appointed Service Transition Manager. There is still some skepticism about the value of Service Transition because, usually, the environment is fairly stable and there aren’t a number of Changes. In addition, a new business transformation project is the focus of the entire organization. This project is being led by the business and managed by an external consulting organization that is implementing a well-known Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) product. To ensure the success of the implementation, the consultants have convinced the business of the need to follow their own project/process methodologies.

Q1. How should you proceed?

a) The re-engineering project offers an opportunity to move forward. It has significant political clout and resources, as well as some established methodologies. You should try to align your Service Transition activities with this effort while still working to communicate the value of Service Transition. Shaping the project into broader-based Service Transition should give both short-term and long-term benefits.

b) To overcome the skepticism about Service Transition, you need to undertake an education and communication effort. You should try to show the potential value to the business. After building support, you should carefully design the Service Transition activities.

c) You feel that the re-engineering project will take a long time and faces serious obstacles. However, you do need to overcome the skepticism and want to show short-term results. You should identify a pilot area and work with it.

d) Because the re-engineering project is consuming the organization, you should put your own efforts on hold till the project is complete. The project will introduce various elements that you can leverage eventually, and you can let the project deal with resistance.

Answersa) 5: Most Correct. The re-engineering project, and its methodologies, is a high-profile reality but can offer

an opportunity. Developing Service Transition while supporting and shaping the project can help overcome barriers that would be more difficult by themselves. It is a pragmatic approach and addresses interfaces with other parts of the Lifecycle.

b) 3: Second Best. While there are some valuable activities, such as defining the benefits, and you are following a best-practice approach, you must recognize the cultural and political environment.

c) 1: Third Best. Setting up a “competing” project, even if based on best practices, will have limited value, especially if the organization is resource constrained.

d) 0: Distracter. Even though the methodology may be well tested, the focus will be only on the project and its deliverables. The implementation will not have the necessary breadth to address your entire environment. There might also be further resistance if more Change is needed to implement your version of Service Transition.



10.4 SERVICE TRANSITION UNDER DIFFICULT CONDITIONS

The kiosk application is scheduled for launch. It is a highly critical, customer-facing application. There have been some issues with both hardware and software vendors, and the project is now running late. Originally, a great deal of trust was placed in the hardware and software vendors, but early testing has indicated some problems in coordinating with each other and with the Royal infrastructure. There is limited ITIL awareness in most IT personnel, but they do have a strong understanding and commitment to the business. This project must succeed, and it is becoming obvious that Service Transition must be implemented to support the launch.

Scenario-Based ActivityQ1. What are the challenges facing Service Transition because of external factors?

Sample Answer:

This is a case where speed of implementation is important, and most probably, money will not be a constraint. However, enough time will not be available to fully address any organizational Change issues.

Some key aspects will be:

y There will be support from the highest levels of the Royal and very clear, quick authorization/escalation channels.

y Try to empower and engage the staff, but recognize that compliance is not optional.

y Because the objective will be a “bare-bones” implementation, what is the “must-have” functionality? What are the dependencies – especially any “hidden” ones?

y There must be an effort to manage any “scope creep” (applications or processes).

y Is the ability to remove some of the typical safety margins that may have been built into original estimates in existence? This will increase Risk and must be recognized, accepted, and approved by the senior management.

y Appropriate documentation, including signatures and approvals, must be maintained.

y Communication should strive to ensure an understanding of not only what is happening but also the drivers/rationale.

A balance between the short-term success of the project and the longer-term success of the IT department or any other Service Management initiatives will need to be maintained.


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© AXELOS Limited 2012All rights reserved.

Reproduction of this material requires the permission of AXELOS Limited.The swirl logoTM is a trade mark of AXELOS LimitedITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited

Page 1 of 15 Version 6.1 (Live) Owner – The Official ITIL Accreditor

ITIL® Intermediate Lifecycle Stream:

SERVICE TRANSITION CERTIFICATE

Sample Paper 1, version 6.1

Gradient Style, Complex Multiple Choice

ANSWERS AND RATIONALES


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Answer Key:

Scenario Question Correct:5 Marks

2nd Best:3 Marks

3rd Best: 1 Mark

Distracter:0 Marks

One 1 A B C D

Two 2 B D C A

Three 3 B A D C

Four 4 D B C A

Five 5 D C B A

Six 6 A C D B

Seven 7 C D A B

Eight 8 A D B C


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QUESTION One Scenario One

Question Rationale This question focuses on the need to develop a change management process that provides both effectiveness in assessing, evaluating and authorizing different types of changes, as well as efficiencies in handling the change volume. A relevant change management process also has to allow for appropriate levels of risk, and must allow low-risk changes to proceed with minimal bureaucracy to allow available resources to be concentrated where they will deliver the maximum benefit.

MOST CORRECT (5) A This solution provides a range of approaches – defined and maintained via change models – to address the different levels of risk in business areas while at the same time minimizing bureaucracy. The change authorization matrix will allow changes to be authorized at the appropriate levels, speeding up lower risk and routine change but ensuring appropriate attention is paid to potentially more dangerous changes. The risk model will be used across the organization, and will help ensure that the right changes are dealt with at the right levels.

SECOND BEST (3) B This is not a bad answer but it does not address the efficiencies that can be gained by introducing change models. While it is possible that some major incidents are the result of unauthorized changes, the scenario states that failed changes are causing the major incidents; therefore a ”zero tolerance” policy will not have the desired benefit. The CAB will be relevant, but not for every type of change and the need for change models matching change type to specific procedures is lacking. Risk needs to be considered consistently across the entire organization, not just by the change management team.

THIRD BEST (1) C While the idea of minimizing bureaucracy may be appealing to the IT staff, this suggestion regarding the approval process still does not address the main concern which is assessing changes based on the associated risk. Such an approach is also likely to result in continued inconsistencies in terms of how “normal changes” are handled across the organization. The lack of consistency will most likely result in more staff resources being used, due to the need to specialize and be aware of multiple approaches. Also, the extra reporting, auditing and central control will add a layer of cost and bureaucracy that is not necessary.

DISTRACTER (0) D The degree of bureaucracy and control here would simply stop the changes happening at all or ensure they are not put through the process. The CAB will not have the time or resources to consider every change request. Escalating all change-related incidents to problem management will likely overwhelm that process and is a reactive approach as the goal is to reduce and prevent major incidents from happening in the first place.

Syllabus Unit / Module supported

ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes

Blooms Taxonomy Testing Level

Level 3 Applying – Use ideas, principles and theories in new, particular and concrete situations. Behavioural tasks at this level involve both knowing and comprehension and might include choosing appropriate procedures, applying principles, using an approach or identifying the selection of options.

Application – The candidate must apply their knowledge of change models and assess the range of approaches sufficiently to determine which will meet the need described in the scenario. The key is detecting that there are different levels of risk which indicate a variety of models and authorization levels to address the needs.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Change models• Assess and evaluate the change• Risk categorization• Authorizing the change

Book Section Refs ST 4.2.4.1 – Service transition processes – Change management – Policies, principles and basic concepts – Policies ST 4.2.4.5 – Service transition processes – Change management – Policies, principles and basic concepts – Change models and workflows ST 4.2.5 – Service transition processes – Change management – Process activities, methods and techniques (Figure 4.2 Example of a process flow for a normal change) ST 4.2.5 – Service transition processes – Change management – Process activities,


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methods and techniques (Figure 4.5 Criteria for delegating authority via a change hierarchy)

Difficulty Hard


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QUESTION Two Scenario Two

Question Rationale This question focuses on application of the change evaluation process and its outputs to other processes. As referenced in the scenario, candidates must determine how change evaluation can: • Assist better understanding of the intended and unintended effects of a change

on the business• Provide more helpful outputs to improve service transition capabilities

MOST CORRECT (5) B This response correctly identifies the evaluation report as the main output from the change evaluation process to change management, and correctly states that the evaluation report is based on the analysis of actual versus predicted performance. It also suggests engaging customers and users in an effort to better understand the effects of a change.

SECOND BEST (3) D This response starts out correctly by recognizing more outputs are needed from the change evaluation process; however, it incorrectly describes the purpose of the interim evaluation report and also incorrectly states that service validation and testing receives the interim report. This answer fails to describe ways that change evaluation can better understand the effects of a change.

THIRD BEST (1) C This response correctly states that change evaluation reports are needed that will identify risks and issues, but wrongly states that the reports only relate to changes before they are implemented (vs. before and after they are implemented). This response wrongly states that the change evaluation process is currently performing correctly in the organization, despite the fact that it is missing its main activities and outputs. This response also inappropriately mixes service validation and testing in the middle of the change evaluation activities. The change evaluation plans are used by change evaluation, and the change evaluation process provides the evaluation reports to change management. This response fails to describe ways that change evaluation can assist with better understanding of the effects of a change.

DISTRACTER (0) A This response completely misrepresents the change evaluation process for several reasons. It fails to acknowledge the evaluation report, which is the main output for the process. Also, it is not intended that the change management team should execute the evaluation plan. It also describes using the evaluation plan after the change is implemented, instead of before. This response fails to identify more helpful outputs and also fails to describe ways that change evaluation can better understand the effects of a change.





Application – The candidate must use their knowledge of the change evaluation, service validation and testing and change management process interfaces to identify which of the answer options contains the correct information.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Change evaluation outputs and interfaces

Book Section Refs ST 4.6.5 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Process activities, methods and techniques (Figure 4.33 Change evaluation process flow) ST 4.6.6.3 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Triggers, inputs, outputs and interfaces – Outputs ST 4.6.6.4 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Triggers, inputs, outputs and interfaces – Interfaces

Difficulty Easy


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QUESTION Three Scenario Three

Question Rationale This question focuses on managing organizational change and on the best approach to ensuring a transition will be successful from an organizational communications perspective.

MOST CORRECT (5) B This answer addresses many of the KEY activities that are required to manage the organizational change. • A project team is created• The stakeholder map and communication plan are developed quickly to be

sympathetic to the sense of urgency and to demonstrate an organized,responsive plan is being created to assist the organizational comfort levelof the proposed change

• Workshops are held and include key elements, chief information officer(CIO) support and users who are negatively impacted by the change. CIOpresence is a crucial element in showing executive support for the change,as is the inclusion of negatively impacted users to bring them into the teamas early as possible to build the solution

• Training is matched to those with an appropriate need and not just ablanket approach, and is not restricted to IT staff only

SECOND BEST (3) A This answer addresses some of the activities required, includes some steps that are not appropriate (e.g., conducting a cultural assessment) and fails to provide the steps necessary to ‘manage’ the change. • The CIO’s plan is not discussed with the staff; it is presented to the staff as

the solution. This does not provide the IT organization with any input intothe solution and will not help with gaining support

• Conducting a cultural assessment is (1) a service design responsibility and(b) not necessary as the scenario states that an assessment has beenperformed

• Elements of this plan that are positive include the visible managementsupport and commitment to the change and creating a communicationplan that supports two-way communication

• However, the communication plan should be based on stakeholders’ levelof commitment, versus the results of a cultural assessment

• Suggested training is limited to key staff members, not necessarilymatched to requirements, and covers IT staff only

THIRD BEST (1) D This answer also includes the main KEY activities that should be undertaken to address the organizational change; however, the activities are executed in an ineffective manner. • While talking to the ‘supportive groups’ is easier and provides positive

feedback it is not the best use of time• Part of managing people through transitions is to ensure that users who are

negatively impacted by the change are consulted immediately and are partof building the solution, as opposed to being “handled’ by managementprivately

• Conducting a cultural assessment is (1) a service design responsibility and(b) not necessary as the scenario states that an assessment has beenperformed. The purpose of a cultural assessment is to determine anorganization’s readiness and level of maturity, not to monitor acceptanceof a change

DISTRACTER (0) C This answer does not address elements of managing organizational change that are relevant to the scenario. • Conducting a cultural assessment is (1) a service design responsibility and

(b) not necessary as the scenario states that an assessment has beenperformed. This answer fails to suggest creating a communication plan

• Targeting communications at groups who are resistant is not the best useof time. It is best to concentrate on those people who are capable ofunderstanding and welcoming the transition

• Creating a commitment planning chart is premature at this time as otheractivities are needed (e.g., establishing a project team, conducting


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workshops, providing training. Furthermore, a commitment planning chart would include all stakeholder, or at a minimum, key stakeholders, not just those that are resisting the change

• The purpose of a stakeholder map is to plot interests, not monitor“employee shock”


ITIL SL: ST04 Managing people through service transitions



Level 4 Analysis – The ability to use the practices and concepts in a situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Can apply what is learned in the classroom, in workplace situations. Can separate concepts into component parts to understand structure and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Application – The candidate must use their knowledge of managing organizational change and communication strategies along with their analysis of the scenario to select the list of actions that will produce the best outcome.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Managing communications and commitment• Managing organizational and stakeholder change

Book Section Refs ST 5.1 – Managing people through service transitions – Managing communications and commitment ST 5.2 – Managing people through service transitions – Managing organization and stakeholder change ST 5.3 – Managing people through service transitions – Stakeholder management

Difficulty Moderate


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QUESTION Four Scenario Four

Question Rationale This question is designed to test the candidate’s knowledge of the purpose and objectives of the service transition processes, and also the application of those processes in relation to the scenario. The correct answer requires that the candidate can link the following processes to the issues identified in the scenario:

• Bullet 1 – release and deployment management (RDM)• Bullet 2 – service validation and testing (SV&T)• Bullet 3 – change evaluation

MOST CORRECT (5) D This is the only answer in which all three statements accurately describe the associated processes. This answer also correctly addresses the issues identified in the scenario.

SECOND BEST (3) B This is the second best option because two of the three statements are correct. However, the statement regarding service validation and testing is not complete as that process also provides assurance that a service will deliver the agreed warranty (in response to the reference to service level requirements in the scenario). Also, this option excludes change evaluation, which would address the third issue mentioned in the scenario about the business not being able to determine the value of some projects.

THIRD BEST (1) C This answer has some merits but also some flaws. In this answer, the statement regarding release and deployment management is correct but it is not as good as the correct answer (D) as it does not reference release and deployment plans, nor does it mention protecting the integrity of existing services, both of which are relevant to the scenario. The statement regarding service validation and testing is wrong as the value statement describes knowledge management. The statement regarding change evaluation is correct but is not as good as the correct answer (D) as it does not speak to the matter of authorizing only those changes that are able to deliver value.

DISTRACTER (0) A This answer is wrong as all of the value statements are incorrect. The transition planning and support statement is actually a release and deployment management statement and does not address the need for improved planning to ensure the business is not affected by unexpected changes. Service validation and testing does have quality assure releases but does not ensure the integrity of a release package; that is RDM’s responsibility. The knowledge management statement is correct but does not relate to any of the issues identified in the scenario. The correct answer must ensure the businessunderstands the value of a service, not IT staff.





Level 4 Analysis – The ability to use the practices and concepts in a situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Can apply what is learned in the classroom, in workplace situations. Can separate concepts into component parts to understand their structure and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Application – The candidate must apply their in-depth knowledge of the service transition processes and analyse the scenario to correctly select the answer option.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Purpose and objectives, scope and value to business of these processes

Book Section Refs ST 4.1.1 – Service transition processes – Transition planning and support – Purpose and objectives ST 4.4.1 – Service transition processes – Release and deployment management – Purpose and objectives ST 4.5.1 – Service transition processes – Service validation and testing – Purpose and objectives ST 4.6.1 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Purpose and objectives


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ST 4.7.1 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – Purpose and objectives

Difficulty Hard


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QUESTION Five Scenario Five

Question Rationale This question focuses on: 1. Ensuring service transition activities are aligned with business, service

management and IT strategies and plans.2. Implementing service transition in a virtual or cloud environment.3. Ensuring service transition activities are appropriate given current financial and

resource constraints.MOST CORRECT (5) D This is the best answer as it addresses all of the issues presented in the

scenario and all of the items listed in the question rationale. • Bullet 1 – addresses both items 1 and 3 above• Bullet 2 – addresses item 2 above• Bullet 3 – addresses item 1 above• Bullet 4 – addresses item 2 above

SECOND BEST (3) C This is the next best answer as the answer options are somewhat applicable to the scenario and question rationales but this option fails to address item 1 above • Bullet 1 – while beneficial, this option speaks more to customers being

aware of the IT organization’s capabilities and needs rather than the otherway around

• Bullet 2 – addresses item 2 above• Bullet 3 – addresses item 2 above• Bullet 4 – touches on item 3 above but fails to speak directly to the matter

of financial constraintsTHIRD BEST (1) B Only the third bullet in this answer directly supports the scenario or question

rationales. • Bullet 1 – while somewhat relevant to item 3 above, this option is very IT-

centric and fails to address the need to ensure resources, includingfinancial resources, are used in a way that supports the priorities of thebusiness

• Bullet 2 – addresses item 1 above but doesn’t really explain why this isimportant (i.e., ensuring those projects that are most important to thebusiness are managed via service transition)

• Bullet 3 – addresses item 2 above but doesn’t really provide any specificsin terms of what must be done

• Bullet 4 – touches on items 1 and 3 above but barely – it fails to mentionensuring plans are aligned with business strategies and plans and alsodoesn’t really explain that templates can improve the utilization ofresources

DISTRACTER (0) A This is the distracter as none of the answers directly address the issues in the scenario or question rationale. • Bullet 1 – while important when transitioning to a cloud environment,

ensuring contracts are in place is not a service transition responsibility. It isa supplier management responsibility

• Bullet 2 – while the scenario states that the business units are struggling tosupport the cloud-based services, there is nothing that identifies incidentsas a major consideration

• Bullet 3 – while important, this option fails to explain what benefits will bederived from increasing continual service improvement initiatives

• Bullet 4 – while increased automation will be a likely part of transitioning toa cloud environment, the organization must first ensure the servicetransition processes are robust enough to handle the automation


ITIL SL: ST02 Service transition principles ITIL SL: ST07 Implementing and improving service transition



Application – The candidate needs to apply their knowledge of service transition principles and considerations when implementing service transition in a virtual or


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cloud environment and determine which list of options best meets the challenges in the scenario. While each answer contains some valid options, only one has four options that directly meet the scenario challenges correctly.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Service transition principles• Metrics for alignment with the business and IT plans• Implementing service transition in a virtual or cloud environment

Book Section Refs ST 3.2.1 – ST principles – Optimizing service transition performance - Metrics for alignment with the business and IT plans ST 8.3 – Implementing service transition – implementing service transition in a virtual or cloud environment

Difficulty Moderate


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QUESTION Six Scenario Six

Question Rationale This question focuses on scoping and technology decisions that need to be made when implementing service asset and configuration management. Key considerations include: • Working with change management to determine the configuration items (CIs) to

be controlled• Migrating to a common CMS architecture that supports the integration of multiple

data sources and enables CI relationships to be maintained• Sharing information across service management processes

MOST CORRECT (5) A This is the best option since it follows ITIL guidance by allowing separate physical databases that each stakeholder group uses to meet its needs, but consolidates the commonly needed information across service areas using a CMS. Working with the stakeholders is the key here to recognizing that there are distinct as well as common information needs. All stakeholder needs can be met in addition to supporting SACM requirements and benefits. The scenario references change management as a key stakeholder and so it is implied that change management is considered in this option.

SECOND BEST (3) C This option is partially accurate since it meets the SACM need for a consolidated view of information and recommends migrating to a common CMS architecture. However, it fails to recognize the needs of the stakeholders by suggesting that the level of detail to be captured in configuration records can be agreed upon, versus supporting the need to CIs of varying complexity. This answer also recommends eliminating the existing databases and moving to a single database, versus looking for ways to integrate the existing data sources into a federated view.

THIRD BEST (1) D The issue with this option is the scope. It sets a limiting and narrow view by placing the current change management practices as the scope, ignoring the service desk and the other functions. This solution would inevitably result in the functions continuing to maintain their spreadsheets and databases and so fails to address the need to share information and maintain CI relationships.

DISTRACTER (0) B This option does not address any of the issues in the scenario. While this option may, at first glance, please the technical and application managers as they will be allowed to track their own attributes in their own spreadsheets and databases, this option does not address the needs of the other stakeholders, nor does it represent best practice.


ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes ITIL SL: ST06 Technology considerations



Application – The candidate must apply their knowledge of SACM and its basic model constructs and use the issues in the scenario to distinguish which approach provides a win-win situation. Following only the guidance will miss the opportunity to meet the diverse needs of each service area, garner support for SACM and still reap shared benefits.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • CMS planning• Scope of CI’s• Establishing requirements• Technology considerations

Book Section Refs ST 4.3.4 – Service transition processes – Service asset and configuration management – Policies, principles and basic concepts ST 4.3.4.3 – Service transition processes – Service asset and configuration management – Configuration management system ST 7.3 – Technology considerations – Configuration management system

Difficulty Moderate


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QUESTION Seven Scenario Seven

Question Rationale To analyse and understand how different roles can support service asset, configuration management (SACM) and release and deployment management process implementation and improvement opportunities.

MOST CORRECT (5) C Given the size of the organization, a combined change, configuration and release manager role makes sense, particularly as there is already an individual assigned to the SACM process owner role. It is appropriate to focus initially on SACM-related responsibilities to establish the process scope and plan the implementation approach. Once this is complete, more staff can be evaluated and the attention can turn to release and deployment management.

SECOND BEST (3) D This answer correctly focuses on the SACM process manager role but requires an upfront configuration analyst role, which may not be needed initially. There was no indication that a widespread ‘awareness campaign to win support’ was needed. It is appropriate to say that the need for additional roles will be evaluated in the future.

THIRD BEST (1) A There is no need for three upfront roles to be staffed by separate individuals because of any ‘check and balance’. Given the very small size of the organization, it is not likely that there will be enough configuration librarian or analyst work to justify the roles. More analysis should be done before filling those roles upfront.

DISTRACTER (0) B This answer just focuses on tools for the CMS as the priority role, and relegates all the configuration manager responsibilities to the process owner. While a release and deployment management process owner will be needed in time, there are more important SACM roles to fill at the present.


ITIL SL: ST05 Organizing for service transition



Level 4 Analysis – The ability to use the practices and concepts in a situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Can apply what is learned in the classroom, in workplace situations. Can separate concepts into component parts to understand structure and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Application – The candidate must apply their knowledge of the SACM roles and distinguish how they should be prioritized in line with the needs of implementation. Roles that are responsible for planning and setting up the initial capabilities must be considered the priority. The candidate must also consider the size of the company and select a range of roles that will suffice to operate SACM fully but with limited resources.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Organizing for service transition• SACM roles and responsibilities

Book Section Refs ST 6.2.1.1 – Organizing for service transition – Functions – Examples of service transition organizational structures – Small organization ST 6.4.7 – Organizing for service transition – Roles – Service asset and configuration management roles

Difficulty Easy


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QUESTION Eight Scenario Eight

Question Rationale This question focuses on the critical success factors (CSFs) most relevant to this organization in light of the trends mentioned in the scenario.

MOST CORRECT (5) A This answer directly addresses the issues raised in the scenario. • Process integration would enable better information sharing (i.e. known

errors, workarounds) between service transition and service operation andwould also ensure that configuration information is accurate and up to dateto improve impact analysis for changes

• Development of good-quality systems, tools, processes and procedureswill assist in process integration and will also ensure consistentlydocumented and executed processes

• A better understanding of configurations and their dependencies will resultin improved change impact analysis, leading to a reduction in the numberof unexpected outages

SECOND BEST (3) D • Defining clear accountabilities, roles and responsibilities would improvethe execution of processes but does not address the matter of inconsistentdocumentation

• Creating and maintaining knowledge in a usable form will help reduce thefact that staff are frequently solving similar issues during release and earlyoperations

• Automating processes to eliminate errors may help reduce the number ofunexpected outages but does not address the fact that there is noevidence in the scenario that the existing service asset and configurationmanagement data is robust enough to support effective impact analysis forchanges

THIRD BEST (1) B • There is nothing in the scenario to suggest the need for improvedintegration with programme and project management

• While establishing a culture that enables knowledge sharing speaks to thefact that staff are frequently solving similar issues, there is nothing in thescenario to suggest that this is a cultural problem. It is more likely anothersymptom of poorly documented processes

• While less variation in the predicted quality of changes is relevant to thescenario, there is no evidence to suggest that cycle time is an issue or thatservice transition is not performing within predicted cost and timeframes.

DISTRACTER (0) C This is the least correct answer as it fails to address the concerns of this organization. • Achieving a balance between maintaining a stable live environment and

being responsive to changes is a challenge that service transition mustaddress but simply to “maintain a stable production environment” is not aCSF

• There is nothing in the scenario to suggest staff lack the requiredknowledge and skill; however, there is clearly the suggestion that poor- performing processes are preventing the sharing and transfer ofknowledge

• Improving service transition processes alone does not address the matterof inconsistent documentation across the incident, problem and changemanagement processes referenced in the scenario


ITIL SL: ST08 Challenges, critical success factors and risks.


Level 4 Analysis – The ability to use the practices and concepts in a situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Can apply what is learned in the classroom to workplace situations. Can separate concepts into component parts to understand structure and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Application – The candidate must analyse the scenario and select the CSFs that are useful given the need to demonstrate ROI. It is not sufficient to apply all CSFs in this case, but those that will produce the desired results.

Subjects covered Categories Covered:


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• Implementing and improving service transition• Service transition critical success factors

Book Section Refs ST 9.2 – Challenges, critical success factors and risks – Critical success factors Difficulty Moderate


143




ITIL® Intermediate Lifecycle Stream:

SERVICE TRANSITION CERTIFICATE

Sample Paper 2, version 6.1

Gradient Style, Complex Multiple Choice

ANSWERS AND RATIONALES


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Answer Key:

Scenario Question Correct: 5 Marks

2nd Best: 3 Marks

3rd Best: 1 Mark

Distracter: 0 Marks

One 1 C B A D

Two 2 C A D B

Three 3 A B C D

Four 4 A D C B

Five 5 C A B D

Six 6 A B D C

Seven 7 A B C D

Eight 8 B A D C


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QUESTION One Scenario One

Question Rationale This question tests the candidate’s understanding of the value of the service asset and configuration management (SACM) process and of a configuration management system (CMS), and how to articulate the value in both business and IT terms. This question requires the candidate to identify the option that will best gain the support of both IT and the business by addressing the following issues identified in the scenario:

• Increased compliance with regulatory reporting• Failed changes• Centrally housing and sharing information• Unexplained service outages and the associated risk

MOST CORRECT (5) C These three points touch on each of the areas for improvement referred to in the question rationale. Also, this answer option best positions the value statements for both a technical audience (e.g. more accurate and integrated data) and a business audience (e.g. managing and preventing outages, optimizing costs, increased compliance).

SECOND BEST (3) B This answer option is also a very good choice, however it tends to be more IT-focused and so it may be difficult to gain support from the business for such a costly venture. The first point is good, however it doesn’t really address minimizing the impact of or preventing outages. The second point addresses benefits for IT in terms of improved ability to manage assets but doesn’t show how that will benefit the business. The third option addresses IT improving service levels and customer satisfaction, however it does not address complying with regulatory requirements which was a stated objective in the scenario.

THIRD BEST (1) A This answer option, much like option B, is also highly technical, however it is slightly more off target because it introduces a narrow view of how the information quality and accuracy will be improved but not of how that will benefit the business and IT. It assumes that software license compliance is the major regulatory issue. It does not address dealing with failed changes. There is nothing in the scenario to indicate the business does not understand the value of IT components and so the third bullet contributes little to the overall answer.

DISTRACTER (0) D While each point is true, none of them address the issues in the scenario as specified in the question rationale.


ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes ITIL SL: ST06 Technology consideration



Application – Based on the information given in the scenario the candidate must select the most appropriate option which not only uses service asset and configuration management to address specific issues such as the need for increased compliance with regulatory reporting, the failed changes mentioned in the assessment report, and the risk caused by unexplained service outages, but which also targets both a business and technical audience.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Purpose and objectives• Value to business• Configuration management system.

Book Section Refs ST 4.3.1 – Service transition processes – Service asset and configuration management – Purpose and objectives ST 4.3.3 – Service transition processes – Service asset and configuration management – Value to business ST 7.3 – Technology considerations – Configuration management system


146




Difficulty Moderate


147




QUESTION Two Scenario Two

Question Rationale This question is focused on the understanding that change evaluation is not about testing whether a service has been built according to the agreed design, but whether it will deliver business value. The focus needs to cover both the intended and unintended effects – both in the circumstances that prevail at the time of transition and those expected during the operational phase of the service.

MOST CORRECT (5) C This answer specifically brings in expertise from all areas and covers the full duration of service transition. It also considers both the anticipated and the actual effects of the service.

SECOND BEST (3) A Good answer, but the focus is only on beneficial aspects. This is not sufficient since a key job of change evaluation is to identify if the anticipated benefits can be delivered within acceptable costs; if they cannot, rejection or rework should be recommended.

THIRD BEST (1) D This answer has some merit but is not complete. Risk is important and needs to be identified and considered but it is not the whole picture - performance benefits also have to be considered. Also, regardless of how quickly transition acts, this approach does not manage changes in requirements.

DISTRACTER (0) B This option does not involve IT. This approach also does not allow the actual performance to be assessed against the predicted performance so that any deviations can be understood and managed.




Level 4 Analysis – The ability to use the practices and concepts in a situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Can apply what is learned in the classroom in workplace situations. Can separate concepts into component parts to understand their structure and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Application - This question requires the candidate to apply their understanding of the change evaluation process to a company by analysing the current issues being faced and selecting the most appropriate approach to prevent issues from recurring.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Change evaluation

o Purpose and objectiveso Scopeo Policies, principles and basic concepts.

Book Section Refs ST 4.6.1 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Purpose and objectives ST 4.6.2 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Scope ST 4.6.4 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Policies, principles and basic concepts

Difficulty Moderate


148




QUESTION Three Scenario Three

Question Rationale This question addresses how a stakeholder map and analysis can be utilized to understand stakeholder interests and help manage their position with regard to the project proposed by the head of IT.

MOST CORRECT (5) A This is the correct answer. This option describes creating a stakeholder map which can then be used to highlight issues in stakeholder commitment, interests, and requirements for both projects so that these can be targeted and addressed via a communication strategy.

SECOND BEST (3) B There is some merit in this answer. This answer describes a stakeholder management strategy but it fails to describe specific actions that can be taken –such as executing a communication strategy – to manage the changing climate and stakeholder position in relation to the projects.

THIRD BEST (1) C There is little merit in this answer. This answer provides the steps that should be taken after an understanding of the stakeholder map and analysis has been reached. A RACI matrix by itself will not change the attitudes of the stakeholders.

DISTRACTER (0) D Since ITIL has already been a part of the organization for the last 18 months and there has been ongoing support until recently from the stakeholders, providing awareness training will not resolve the concerns,


ITIL SL: ST04 Managing people through service transitions



Application – This question requires that the candidate understand the current climate of the organization in the scenario in order to apply the most appropriate action. There is a shift in priorities which needs to be managed and only one answer option will provide the right information to manage that.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Stakeholder management.

Book Section Refs ST 5.2.6 – Managing people through service transitions – Managing organization and stakeholder change – Organizational change products (RACI matrix for managing change) ST 5.2.10.2 – Managing people through service transitions – Managing organization and stakeholder change – Methods, practices and techniques – J.P. Kotter’s eight steps to transform your organization ST 5.3.2 – Managing people through service transitions – Stakeholder management –Stakeholder map and analysis

Difficulty Moderate


149




QUESTION Four Scenario Four

Question Rationale This question focuses on roles within service transition and determining the best roles to put in place, given the issues being faced by a small organization such as ensuring:

• services deliver value (change evaluation)• services work reliably, and deliver the expected levels of quality (service

validation and testing)• a balance between the impact and speed of deployment

MOST CORRECT (5) A These two roles will fill in the change evaluation and validation and testing gaps that are apparent in the organization. The evaluation manager is a role that can be handled by the existing release and deployment manager, and the service validation and testing manager is correctly appointed to a new resource, not the release and deployment manager. This segregation of duties will ensure independent testing and test verification. The description of each role supports the desired outcomes, as described by the chief information officer (CIO) and as listed in the question rationale.

SECOND BEST (3) D These two roles will fill in the change evaluation and validation and testing gaps that are apparent in the organization. While the evaluation manager does focus on assessing actual against predicted performance and producing evaluation reports, this answer fails to address the fact that some risk-taking may be necessary, given the business’s time to market requirements. The service validation and testing manager role is accurately described and will provide the necessary support for the CIO. However, in order to ensure independent testing and test verification, this role should not be carried out by the release and deployment manager.

THIRD BEST (1) C It is not necessary to fill the service transition manager role at this point, particularly given that this is a small organization. The description of the service validation and testing manger role is accurate and does relate well to the organization in terms of ensuring requirements are correctly defined and are managed throughout the transition, as this is a volatile environment. The answer fails, however, to recognize the importance of the change evaluation role in terms of ensuring that services deliver value.

DISTRACTER (0) B Neither of these roles relates to the organization’s need for change evaluation, service validation and testing (see question rationale). It is not necessary to fill the service transition manager role at this point, particularly given that this is a small organization. There is nothing in the scenario to indicate that release packaging and build activities are a concern and so the release packaging and build manager would add little value at this time as well.


ITIL SL: ST05 Organizing for service transition ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes



Application – This question requires the candidate to examine the scenario issues leading to the need for change evaluation procedures and improved service validation and testing. It tests the ability to discover these weaknesses in the organization and appropriately apply the correct roles to address the issues.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Service transition roles and responsibilities; particularly change evaluation and

service validation and testing• Service transition roles in relation to the purpose and objectives of their related

service transition processes.Book Section Refs ST 4.1.1 – Service transition processes – Transition planning and support – Purpose

and objectives


150




ST 4.5.1 – Service transition processes – Service validation and testing – Purpose and objectives ST 4.6.1 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Purpose and objectives ST 4.6.9.1 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Challenges and risks ST 6.4.5.1 – Organizing for service transition – Roles – Transition planning and support roles – Service transition manager ST 6.4.8.3 – Organizing for service transition – Roles – Release and deployment management roles – Release packaging and build practitioner ST 6.4.9.2 – Organizing for service transition – Roles – Service validation and testing roles – Service validation and testing process manager ST 6.4.10.2 – Organizing for service transition – Roles – Change evaluation roles – Change evaluation process manager

Difficulty Moderate


151




QUESTION Five Scenario Five

Question Rationale This question tests the candidate’s understanding of the knowledge management process. Issues to be addressed from the scenario include: • Considering the chief information officer’s (CIO’s) improvement goals• Consolidating multiple help desks and the associated knowledge and expertise• Resistance to the idea of knowledge-sharing• Eliminating the need for users to wait for a response, particularly when services

are newly introduced, by ensuring knowledge gained in service transition istransferred to the service desk

• Accommodating collaboration and informal knowledge-sharingMOST CORRECT (5) C • Bullet 1 – considers the needs of all stakeholders which would include

service desk staff, application management staff and users• Bullet 2 – will reduce the time users must wait for responses concerning

newly introduced services• Bullet 3 – will address the need for informal knowledge-sharing.

Rewarding collaboration and knowledge-sharing will help to break downthe resistance.

SECOND BEST (3) A • Bullet 1 – represents best practice and will accommodate the need toconsolidate the knowledge and expertise of multiple help desks

• Bullet 2 – is a positive and will minimize some of the resistance associatedwith the consolidation effort, but not as effectively as rewardingcollaboration and knowledge-sharing

• Bullet 3 – will help eliminate the need for users to wait for a response andprovides access to some of the informal knowledge-sharing resources

• This answer option is good but could be better in terms of addressing theresistance to knowledge-sharing and the need for collaboration andinformal knowledge-sharing methods. It also fails to address the problemof ensuring knowledge gained in service transition is transferred to theservice desk.

THIRD BEST (1) B • Bullet 1 – is a positive but may not be enough, at least initially, to breakdown the resistance. This option also makes reference to knowledgetransfer but not the broader concepts of collaboration and knowledge-sharing

• Bullet 2 – such a role would be appropriate in this type of situation• Bullet 3 – such a policy would be appropriate in this type of situation• All of these options are appropriate but fall short of addressing the specific

challenges identified in the scenario.DISTRACTER (0) D This answer does not address the issues presented in the scenario.

• Bullet 1 – does not represent a conclusion that these parties could reach,nor does it reflect the CIO’s goal of optimizing support costs

• Bullet 2 – is beyond the scope of knowledge management and isspecifically stated as an exclusion

• Bullet 3 – is not a responsibility of knowledge management, rather it is aservice asset and configuration management activity.


ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes ITIL SL: ST06 Technology consideration



Application - This question requires the candidate to analyse the challenges facing an organization – as specified in the question rationale – and identify knowledge management best practices that will help overcome those challenges.

Subjects covered Categories Covered:


152




• Knowledge management purpose, objectives and scope• Knowledge management value to the business• The service knowledge management system.

Book Section Refs ST 4.7.1 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – Purpose and objectives ST 4.7.2 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – Scope ST 4.7.3 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – Value to business ST 4.7.4.3 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – The service knowledge management system ST 4.7.9 – Service transition processes – Knowledge management – Challenges and risks ST 7.2.1 – Technology considerations – Collaboration – Communities

Difficulty Moderate


153




QUESTION Six Scenario Six

Question Rationale This question tests the candidate’s understanding of the value of specific service transition processes and the role that service transition plays in organizational change. Candidates are challenged to identify improvement opportunities related to issues identified in the scenario such as:

• Ensuring services deliver recognizable business benefits.MOST CORRECT (5) A This is the correct answer.

• Since the business benefits are apparently not being delivered,implementing the change evaluation process will bring the business valueof the change to the forefront by managing and assisting withunderstanding any deviations in the intended performance and the actualperformance of the change

• Also, it is plausible that the cause lies in a failure to implement elements ofthe change organizationally. Improving service transition’s role inorganizational change will ensure that the organizational change happensaccording to the plans, that the change is still relevant in currentcircumstances, and that the organizational change delivers the predictedorganization capabilities and resources. It will also drive improvements toservice design

• In the second phase, formalizing release and deployment managementand service validation and testing will support the improved changeevaluation process and service transition’s role in organizational change.

SECOND BEST (3) B This is the second best answer. • Implementing the change evaluation process will bring the business value

of the change to the forefront by managing and assisting withunderstanding any deviations in the intended performance and the actualperformance of the change

• However, focusing on release and deployment management as a prioritywill not improve business support as quickly since changes are,technically, being delivered successfully within their performance criteria

• In the second phase, service validation and testing is appropriately placed,as improvements here will support successful release and deploymentmanagement and change evaluation. However, more emphasis should beplaced on service transition’s role in organizational change, given that thegoal is support of the business and the business value of change.

THIRD BEST (1) D This is the third best answer. • Change evaluation will help identify whether business benefits which will

show some quick wins are being delivered• However, focusing on knowledge management is not an effective way to

improve business support• In the second phase, this answer option does key in on the need to focus

on service transition’s role in organizational change but it misses the needto improve testing to validate and verify that business requirements arebeing satisfied.

DISTRACTER (0) C This is the least correct option. • Not considering change evaluation at all in this answer option is a

significant oversight. Change evaluation will bring the business value ofthe change to the forefront by managing and assisting with understandingany deviations in the intended performance and the actual performance ofthe change

• Focusing first on service validation and testing will not address the issuesin the scenario, particularly the fact that business benefits are not comingthrough. Therefore, change evaluation (which is absent from this answeroption) needs to be the focus

• Organizational change is essential to the improvements required and so is


154




appropriately placed • In the second phase, the inclusion of transition planning and support and

release and deployment management cannot compensate for the absenceof change evaluation.


ITIL SL: ST03 Service transition processes ITIL SL: ST04 Managing people through service transition



Application - This question requires the candidate to apply their understanding of how change evaluation is applied to service transition and to pick out how managing service transition’s role in organizational change can have an impact on how well the business is served and supported by IT.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Processes within service transition• Service transition’s role in organizational change.

Book Section Refs ST 5.2.3 – Managing people through service transitions – Managing organization and stakeholder change – Service transition’s role in organizational change ST 4.2.1 – Service transition processes – Change evaluation – Purpose and objectives ST 4.4.1 – Service transition processes – Release and deployment management – Purpose and objectives ST 4.5.1 – Service transition processes – Service validation and testing – Purpose and objectives

Difficulty Moderate


155




QUESTION Seven Scenario Seven

Question Rationale This question deals with identifying and articulating considerations and critical success factors (CSFs) for establishing service transition within a small organization that uses standard software. Candidates must also consider how service transition integrates with other parts of the service lifecycle. These considerations and CSFs must address the CFO/CIO’s concerns in relation to areas such as time, value, performance, communication and business impact.

MOST CORRECT (5) A This option takes all points into consideration. It reflects the nature and size of the organization, and addresses the direct issues being faced, which include a lack of business value of services, inadequate communications around change, and the importance of the integration of service design with service transition. This option correctly keys in on how change management, release and deployment management, service validation, testing, and change evaluation can help to address the issues around quality and time, as well as cost.

SECOND BEST (3) B This option addresses important aspects of the organization and keys in on the importance of integration with other lifecycle stages but it fails to address the issues around the business value of services (existing, new and change) not being realized. It is a more technologically-focused approach. Focusing on transition planning and support is highly unnecessary at this point; this approach does not take into consideration the culture and size of the organization. This type of management is not critical at this stage.

THIRD BEST (1) C This option fails to address the CFO/CIO’s concerns (see question rationale). While the need to ensure integration across the service lifecycle is noted, the focus is on service strategy and the service portfolio rather than on the issues facing the organization.

DISTRACTER (0) D This answer is wrong as it fails to address the CFO/CIO’s concerns (see question rationale). The focus is on risk management, return on investment and resource utilization, none of which are presented as concerns in the scenario. Formalized change management is recommended without giving any consideration to the size of the organization and its culture.


ITIL SL: ST02 Service transition principles ITIL SL: ST05 Organizing for service transition ITIL SL: ST08 Challenges, critical success factors and risks



Application - This question requires the candidate to analyse the structure and culture of the organization in the scenario and to determine the most appropriate critical success factors to establish formalized service transition. It also tests the candidate’s ability to understand which processes should be applied and how to ensure these critical success factors can be in place.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Service transition inputs and outputs• Service transition critical success factors• Service transition relationship with other lifecycle stages.

Book Section Refs ST 3.3 – Service transition principles – Service transition inputs and outputs ST 6.7 – Organizing for service transition – Service transition relationship with other lifecycle stages ST 9.1 – Challenges, critical success factors and risks – Challenges ST 9.2 – Challenges, critical success factors and risks – Critical success factors

Difficulty Easy


156




QUESTION Eight Scenario Eight

Question Rationale This question focuses on the principles of service transition and the potential value to the business. This question highlights some of the high-level ways that ITIL service transition can potentially add value to the type of organization that experiences high rates of change, that needs to stay extremely competitive and deals heavily in mergers, de-mergers, acquisitions and transfers of service.

MOST CORRECT (5) B This answer correctly touches on benefits such as the ability to handle a high volume of changes and the ability to adapt quickly to changing conditions such as mergers, etc., thus providing a competitive advantage. This answer also emphasizes the ability to control business changes, including divestments and transfers of services, and not just adding new or changed services.

SECOND BEST (3) A This is also a good option but it does not address the challenges facing the organization (see question rationale) as directly as option B. The answer touches on the need to handle a high volume of changes but does not highlight an improved ability to adapt to changing requirements. To be successful in a venture capitalist market, the company must already have a good understanding of risk and so its inclusion as a benefit adds little value. This option focuses on the area of complying with government requirements that may or may not relate to this company: there is nothing mentioned about it in the scenario.

THIRD BEST (1) D This option is slightly scattered. It does not directly address the points that were discussed in the scenario (see question rationale). If fails to mention providing the ability to handle and control a high volume of changes and adapt to changing requirements. Rather, it touches on topics that aren’t brought up in the scenario such as financial and resource constraints and the need for improved communications and team work.

DISTRACTER (0) C This option is very generic. While it loosely explains where service transition fits into the lifecycle and how it might work with service strategy, it fails to address the specific needs of the company in the scenario (see question rationale) because it doesn’t describe benefits such as those listed in option B.


ITIL SL: ST01 Introduction to service transition



Application - This scenario provides the candidate with enough direct information to pull out the value statements from service transition which directly apply to this very specific type of company.

Subjects covered Categories Covered: • Service transition’s potential value to the business

Book Section Refs ST 1.1.2 – Introduction – Scope ST 1.1.4 – Introduction – Overview – Value to business

Difficulty Easy

Student | ITIL Intermediate Certification Level | Service Transition

Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. 157Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. 157Copyright © ITpreneurs and AXELOS Limited 2014. All rights reserved. 157

Release NotesRelease Type Market Release

Course Name ITIL Service Transition Lifecycle Current Version No. r3.3.0 Current Release Date July 14, 2014

Previous Release Version No. r3.2.0 Previous Release Date January 11, 2013

Next Release Version No. TBD Next Release Date TBD

Course Description

Course Duration: 3 days# of Modules: 10Case Study Based: YesAssociated Certification Name: ITIL Service Transition Lifecycle

Components Released• PPTs• Instructor Guide• Reference material (printable version and eBook)• Workbook (printable version and online version)• EPG and Mock Exam

New Features

Course updated as per AXELOS guidelines.

Online version on workbook is also available

There are few structural differences in eBook and printed materials –EPG has been moved from work book to eBook.Macro images have been removed for eBookTable of Content has been updated accordingly.

Bugs Reported Action TakenNA NA

Known Issues Expected FixNA 2014

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