Purpose and key terms of 15 ITIL practices
This objective asks for the purpose of fifteen ITIL practices and the definitions of a handful of key terms. It is heavily weighted towards recognition: given a purpose in different words, name the practice. Objective 6 of ITIL 4 Foundation, worth 12.5% of the exam.
- Share of the exam
- 12.5%
- Questions in a real sitting
- roughly 5 of 40
- Questions in this bank
- 15
- Signed for by a person
- 0
- Machine-checked only
- 15
Partly checked. None of the 15 questions here has been read against the cited source by a person. 15 questions have been checked against their cited clause by an automated pass — which is not the same thing, and is not a signature.
Only questions a person has signed for are used in mock exams here. That is the whole difference between the two kinds of checking above.
How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
What this objective covers
The 15 questions written for this objective cite 1 ITIL 4 syllabus clause (6).
They break down as 15 single-answer questions.
What this objective is really about
Fifteen practices is a lot of surface area, and the exam does not test them evenly. What it tests is whether you can match a paraphrased purpose to the right practice when three neighbouring practices are offered alongside it. That means the useful revision is not memorising fifteen sentences but learning the boundaries between the practices that sound alike.
The boundaries that decide questions
Release management and deployment management are the pair worth learning first. Deployment moves components into an environment — including test and staging environments, which is the detail that distinguishes it. Release is about availability for use: what goes out together and when people can actually start using it. Modern practice makes the split obvious, because code can be deployed behind a feature flag without being released, and a release can be switched on without any new deployment.
IT asset management and service configuration management both keep records about the same physical things, and the discriminator is purpose. Asset management exists to maximise value and control cost and risk over an asset's whole life — a financial test. Service configuration management exists so that accurate information about how services are configured is available when and where it is needed — a service-delivery test. A documented procedure can be a configuration item without being an asset; a leased laptop is usually both.
Supplier management and relationship management overlap in the same way. Supplier management is scoped to suppliers and to their performance. Relationship management is broader and works at strategic and tactical levels with stakeholders generally. If a question says "strategic and tactical", it is pointing at relationship management.
Change enablement is worth a note of its own: its purpose is to maximise the number of successful changes, not to minimise change or to act as a gate. The rename from "change management" in ITIL 4 was meant to signal exactly that.
The key terms
An incident is service failing unexpectedly — either stopping altogether or dropping below the quality that was agreed. A problem is whatever is causing that, or could cause it; the word "potential" carries real weight, because a problem can be identified before any incident has happened at all. Once a problem has been investigated and understood, it is reclassified as a known error, and the trigger for that reclassification is the analysis rather than any repair. A workaround is what you do in the meantime to keep the impact down while no full fix exists — an action, never a record.
A change is defined far more broadly than most people expect: anything added, altered or taken away that might affect services, whether the effect is direct or indirect. That reach is the point — it covers documentation, processes and supplier arrangements, not only code and hardware.
Lessons in this objective
The objective cut into the pieces the blueprint declares. Each one has the material written out and the questions that test it.
- Release, deployment, change, suppliers and events
- Security, incidents, problems and requests
- Service desk, configuration, assets and relationships
Drill this objective
The trainer can run a short practice set drawn from this objective alone, which is what the weight column above is for: revise the heavy objectives first.
Practise Purpose and key terms of 15 ITIL practices
Questions on this objective
- A practice is responsible for making new and changed services and features available for use. Which practice is described? machine-checked
- Which statement best describes the purpose of the deployment management practice? machine-checked
- An organization wants to increase how many of its product and service changes succeed, by making sure risk is properly assessed before work is authorized and by keeping an accurate schedule of authorized work. Which practice has this as its purpose? machine-checked
- An organization wants a practice that ensures its suppliers and their performance are managed appropriately, so that a seamless quality of products and services is provided. Which practice is this? machine-checked
- Which practice systematically observes services and service components, records and reports selected changes of state, and establishes the appropriate response to them? machine-checked
- An organization wants a single practice to own keeping the data its business runs on safe from disclosure, tampering and loss. Which practice is that? machine-checked
- Which pair correctly matches the ITIL 4 definitions of 'incident' and 'problem'? machine-checked
- A problem has been investigated and its cause is now understood, but no permanent fix has been implemented. Meanwhile, restarting a service every morning keeps users working. Which terms apply? machine-checked
- Which statement best describes the purpose of the problem management practice? machine-checked
- A user asks for an additional licensed application to be installed on their laptop. This is a standard, pre-approved offering listed in the service catalogue. Which practice should handle it, and why? machine-checked
- Which statement best describes the purpose of the service desk practice? machine-checked
- Which practice exists to ensure that accurate and reliable information about the configuration of services, and about the configuration items that support them, is available when and where it is needed? machine-checked
- Which statement correctly describes a configuration item and the configuration management database? machine-checked
- A practice plans and manages the full lifecycle of all IT assets so the organization can maximize value, control costs, manage risks, and make good decisions about purchase, re-use and retirement. Which practice is this? machine-checked
- An organization wants a practice that establishes and nurtures the links between it and its stakeholders at strategic and tactical levels. Which practice meets this need? machine-checked
Practise Purpose and key terms of 15 ITIL practices
The other objectives in ITIL 4 Foundation
- 1. Key concepts of service management — 12.5% of the exam
- 2. The ITIL guiding principles — 15% of the exam
- 3. The four dimensions of service management — 5% of the exam
- 4. The ITIL service value system — 2.5% of the exam
- 5. The service value chain — 5% of the exam
- 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail — 47.5% of the exam