Why does an organisation define a separate procedure for major incidents rather than handling them exactly like all other incidents?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail 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
Not correct Because major incidents must be authorised as emergency changes before any work begins
This inverts the relationship. Fixing a major incident may require an emergency change, but the incident procedure is not itself a change authorisation route and restoration is not gated behind it.
Not correct Because a major incident is reclassified as a problem and so leaves the incident management practice
It does not. A major incident is still an incident and is still restored through incident management; problem management may run in parallel or afterwards on the cause, but it does not take over the restoration.
Correct Because they need shorter timescales and greater urgency, often handled by a dedicated temporary team
Correct. Major incidents keep the same purpose — restore service — but the normal timescales and routing are too slow, so a distinct procedure and a temporary team assembled for the purpose are used.
Not correct Because major incidents are excluded from the agreed prioritisation scheme and are worked first by definition
They are identified by the prioritisation scheme, not excluded from it. The separate procedure describes how they are handled once identified; it does not replace categorisation and prioritisation.
Why
Major incidents are distinguished by required speed and coordination, not by a different objective. A separate documented procedure with shorter timescales and a dedicated temporary team exists so that the routine workflow does not throttle a high-impact response.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
- What it says
- Major incidents are handled with a separate procedure, with shorter timescales and greater urgency, often by a dedicated temporary team.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.