A review of user satisfaction data leads a team to change how a service is monitored and to refine the practice used to handle recurring faults. Which value chain activity does this work belong to, and how does it differ from its nearest neighbour?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 5. The service value chain hard
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The options
Not correct Deliver and support — because monitoring and fault handling are operational, and all operational change belongs there
Deliver and support is about delivering and supporting services to the agreed specification. Changing how monitoring and practices work in order to make them better is improvement work.
Not correct Plan — because any change to how a service is run must first be planned, and improve only executes approved plans
Improve is not a subordinate execution step of plan. Its purpose is the continual improvement itself, and it can be triggered from any value chain activity.
Not correct Engage — because the trigger was user satisfaction data, and all work arising from stakeholder feedback is engage
Engage supplies the understanding of stakeholder needs and gathers feedback, but acting on that feedback to improve services and practices is the purpose of improve.
Correct Improve — it drives continual improvement of products, services and practices across all value chain activities, whereas plan establishes shared vision, current status and direction
Correct. Improve is the activity that continually improves products, services and practices across every value chain activity and all four dimensions; plan is direction-setting and shared understanding.
Why
The plan/improve distinction is the most commonly missed pairing in the value chain. Plan's purpose is a shared understanding of vision, current status and improvement direction; improve's purpose is the continual improvement of products, services and practices across all value chain activities and all four dimensions. Work that actually raises the quality of a service or a practice is improve, even when stakeholder feedback triggered it.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 5.2
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 5 and space the ones you get wrong.
More questions on this objective
- A newly appointed service owner finds that different departments have contradictory views of where the organization's services stand today and where they are heading. Which service value chain activity is intended to resolve this? machine-checked
- Which value chain activity has the purpose of ensuring a good understanding of stakeholder needs, together with transparency and continual engagement and good relationships with all stakeholders? machine-checked
- Which value chain activity is responsible for ensuring that service components are available when and where they are needed, and that they meet agreed specifications? machine-checked
- Which statement most accurately describes the relationship between the service value chain activities and value streams? machine-checked
- A provider is changing an existing service so that it will continue to meet agreed expectations for quality, cost and time to market, and is preparing to move the changed service into live use. Which value chain activity best describes this? machine-checked