Service desk, configuration, assets and relationships
The service desk as a point of contact rather than a place, the two practices that keep records about the same equipment for entirely different reasons, and where relationship management sits alongside supplier management.
Lesson 3 of 3 in objective 6. Purpose and key terms of 15 ITIL practices, part of ITIL 4 Foundation.
The service desk
The service desk takes in the demand for incidents to be resolved and for requests to be fulfilled, and it is where users come in — the one door, and the first person they deal with. The two halves of that matter separately: it takes in the demand, and it is the one door users come through. A purpose statement that describes it only as a place where incidents are fixed is describing something narrower than the practice.
It is defined by that position rather than by being a room or a team, which is why the objective phrases questions around distributed staffing and multiple channels. That is developed in detail under objective 7.
Assets and configuration items
IT asset management takes an organisation's IT assets through their whole life, planning and running each stage, so that value is maximised, cost and risk are held down, and decisions about buying, re-using and retiring things are made well. It is a financial and lifecycle practice, and the giveaway words are cost, value, purchase, re-use and retirement.
Service configuration management exists so that anyone who needs to know how a service is put together, and which items hold it up, can get information that is accurate and current at the moment they need it. It is a service-delivery practice, and the giveaway is "accurate information, available where needed".
They keep records about many of the same physical things, and the discriminator is always the PURPOSE the record serves. A configuration item is any component that has to be managed in order to deliver a service, which is broader than a purchasable asset — a documented procedure can be a configuration item without being an asset. A configuration management database is a database used to store configuration records across their lifecycle. A leased laptop is usually both an asset and a configuration item, and that is not a contradiction.
Relationship management, and its line against supplier management
Relationship management builds the links between the organisation and everyone with a stake in it, and keeps them healthy, at STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL levels. Those two words are almost always in the question, and they are the fastest signal available on this objective: when you see them, the answer is relationship management.
Supplier management overlaps with it and is narrower in a specific way — it is scoped to suppliers and to their performance. So a scenario about managing how well an outsourced provider delivers is supplier management, and a scenario about identifying, analysing and maintaining links with stakeholders in general is relationship management.
Worth carrying in
- Service desk
- Takes in demand for incidents and requests; the one point of contact for users.
- IT asset management
- Full lifecycle of assets: value, cost, risk, purchase, re-use, retirement.
- Service configuration management
- Accurate configuration information, available when and where needed.
- Configuration item
- Any component that must be managed to deliver a service. Broader than an asset.
- CMDB
- A database holding configuration records through their lifecycle.
- Relationship management
- Links with stakeholders at strategic and tactical levels.
What the exam does with this
- "Strategic and tactical" points at relationship management. "Suppliers and their performance" points at supplier management.
- Asset management is the financial and lifecycle question; configuration management is the "is the information accurate and available" question. The same laptop can be both.
- A configuration item need not be a purchasable thing — a document a service depends on qualifies.
- The service desk purpose includes CAPTURING demand and being the single point of contact, not just resolving.
- Objective
- 6. Purpose and key terms of 15 ITIL practices
- Share of the exam
- 12.5% (the whole objective)
- Questions in this lesson
- 5
- Signed for by a person
- 0
Partly checked. None of the 5 questions here has been read against the cited source by a person. 5 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.
Drill this lesson
A lesson is one sitting: the trainer draws a short run from these questions alone and spaces the ones you get wrong.
Practise Service desk, configuration, assets and relationships
Questions in this lesson
- 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 Service desk, configuration, assets and relationships
The rest of objective 6
- Release, deployment, change, suppliers and events
- Security, incidents, problems and requests
- Service desk, configuration, assets and relationships — you are here