A known error has been recorded with a workaround in place. The team periodically re-examines its impact, the cost of the incidents it causes, and whether a permanent fix has become worthwhile. Which phase of problem management is this?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail hard
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The options
Not correct Change enablement
A change request may well come out of this activity, but raising and assessing that change is a different practice. The re-assessment itself belongs to problem management.
Not correct Problem control
Problem control is the earlier phase where the problem is analysed and workarounds and known errors are documented. Once a known error exists, ongoing management of it moves to error control.
Not correct Problem identification
Identification is about discovering that a problem exists at all. This problem was found and analysed some time ago.
Correct Error control
Correct. Error control manages known errors after analysis: it identifies potential permanent solutions, which may lead to a change request, and it re-assesses known errors and the effectiveness of their workarounds over time.
Why
The dividing line between the two control phases is the known error. Problem control produces analysis, workarounds and known error records; error control then owns those known errors, periodically reconsidering the cost-benefit case for a permanent solution as circumstances change.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.
More questions on this objective
- Which statement best describes what the incident management practice is intended to achieve? machine-checked
- How is an incident defined in ITIL? machine-checked
- Several incidents are open at once and the support team must decide which to work on first. On what basis should the order be decided? machine-checked
- A difficult incident is worked on by pulling several specialists from different teams into the same session at the same time; once it becomes clear who is best placed to continue, the others step away. What is this technique called? machine-checked
- Why does an organisation define a separate procedure for major incidents rather than handling them exactly like all other incidents? machine-checked
- A support team routinely fixes incidents by phone and updates the incident record only with the word 'fixed'. What is the most significant consequence of this? machine-checked