A critical service has failed and a fix must be applied as soon as possible. Which statement correctly describes how change enablement treats this emergency change?
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 It must wait for the next scheduled change authority meeting so that it can be assessed properly
Wrong. Waiting for the routine cycle defeats the point of the emergency type; the expedited route exists so urgent work does not queue behind the calendar.
Not correct Assessment and authorisation are waived entirely, because urgency overrides control
Wrong. This is the dangerous misreading. Compressing an assessment is not the same as abandoning it — an unassessed emergency fix is how one incident becomes two.
Not correct It is reclassified as a standard change so that it can proceed under existing pre-authorisation
Wrong. Standard changes are pre-authorised precisely because they are routine, documented and low risk. An unplanned urgent fix meets none of those conditions.
Correct Assessment and authorisation are compressed and expedited, often through a separate change authority, rather than skipped
Correct. Emergency changes still require authorisation; the difference is speed. Organisations typically nominate a smaller, faster change authority so a decision can be reached quickly.
Why
Emergency changes must be implemented as soon as possible — to resolve an incident or apply an urgent security fix, for example. What changes is the tempo, not the existence of control: assessment and authorisation are expedited, frequently via a distinct change authority, and testing or documentation may be reduced or completed afterwards. Authorisation is never simply omitted.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
- What it says
- Emergency changes must be implemented as soon as possible; their assessment and authorisation are expedited, often with a separate change authority.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.