An organization decides to introduce robotic process automation for its user access request handling. Its ITIL adviser insists that the approval steps are first reviewed and the redundant ones removed. What is the reasoning behind this advice?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 2. The ITIL guiding principles medium
Draft — not checked yet. This question was written from the published exam objectives and cites the clause it comes from, but nobody has yet read it against that clause and signed for it.
It is kept out of search results and out of mock exams until they have. Read the source below before you take the answer as settled.
The options
Correct A process should be optimized before it is automated, otherwise automation simply makes a wasteful process run faster
Correct. 'Optimize and automate' has an explicit sequence: simplify and optimize first, then apply technology. Automating waste only industrializes the waste.
Not correct Automation is only permitted once a process has been fully documented and audited
The principle does not impose a documentation or audit precondition. The stated sequencing concern is optimization first, not paperwork first.
Not correct Technology should be used only where human resources are unavailable
This inverts the intent. Automation is used to free human attention for complex decision-making, not merely as a last resort when people are missing.
Not correct Automation must always deliver a measurable cost reduction before it is approved
Value from automation is not restricted to cost saving, and no such approval gate is part of the principle. The relevant point is the optimize-then-automate order.
Why
'Optimize and automate' is a two-word principle in a deliberate order. Optimization makes something as effective and useful as possible; automation then applies technology to the improved way of working. Automating an unoptimized process locks in its inefficiencies and reproduces them at speed and scale.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 2
- What it says
- Optimize and automate: optimize the way of working first, then apply technology to it.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 2 and space the ones you get wrong.