A service provider adds an elaborate self-service portal feature that no user has asked for and that does not help users achieve any outcome they care about. Which guiding principle has been neglected?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 2. The ITIL guiding principles medium
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The options
Correct Focus on value
Correct. Everything the organization does should map, directly or indirectly, to value for the service consumer and other stakeholders, and that requires knowing who is being served and what they consider valuable.
Not correct Keep it simple and practical
The feature does add complexity, so this principle is also relevant, but the primary failure is building something with no link to consumer value at all rather than building it in too many steps.
Not correct Collaborate and promote visibility
Involving users might have exposed the gap, but the principle itself is about stakeholder involvement and transparency of work, not about whether an output creates value.
Not correct Progress iteratively with feedback
Feedback would have caught this sooner, yet the neglected idea is the value link itself; iteration is the mechanism, not the missing principle.
Why
'Focus on value' requires the organization to know who is being served, to understand the consumer's perspective of value including their experience, and to ensure every activity links back to value for stakeholders. A feature nobody wants fails that test at the first step.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 2
- What it says
- Focus on value: everything done should link back to value for the service consumer and other stakeholders.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 2 and space the ones you get wrong.