Risk profile table for deployment of releases to the main web site. High Acceptable Unacceptable Unacceptable

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1 ITIL V3 Intermediate Capability Stream: RELEASE, CONTROL AND VALIDATION (RC&V) CERTIFICATE SCENARIO BOOKLET Scenario One A global company develops their own applications to support the business. The Service Transition function is responsible for testing and deploying releases. There are many releases of different types each week. The types of release are classified as major, minor and emergency. This company s objectives for Service Management are: Improve Return on Investment for IT enabled business services Ensure customer and stakeholder satisfaction with the IT services Reduce unpredicted impact of IT change on the business Reduce IT solution and service delivery errors and rework Over the last twelve months the quality of releases has deteriorated and total costs of IT services have increased. Recent stakeholder satisfaction surveys have identified the following issues: Testing is completed later than planned Deployment of releases into production is often late Poor stakeholder satisfaction with the Service Transition function Cost overruns for the testing of several releases Each release introduces a high number of errors into production Service levels are adversely affected for some time after each deployment You are the process owner for Service Validation and Testing and have recently implemented a service improvement that has resulted in an improved process for recording errors identified during testing. You now want to introduce appropriate metrics for quality, time, cost and residual risk for service transitions in order to identify further areas for improvement. The tool that is used to support service management has the capability to track several possible metrics, but due to constraints can only report on five of them. The possible Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are: 1. Increase in the number of errors identified during testing 2. Reduction in the time to test each release 3. Reduction in the number of incidents in the live environment that are attributable to each release, classified by impact / disruption 4. Reduction in the number of days following each release deployment until service levels are restored 5. Reduction in the number and percentage of problems and Known Errors identified during testing a release that are deployed to service operations 6. Reduction in the cost of managing the test environment and conducting acceptance testing 7. Increase of the Return on Investment of testing 8. Increase in stakeholder satisfaction with the testing process Scenario Two ABC s IT Department manages the main company website and there has recently been a significant increase in usability issues, performance incidents and major outages. You are responsible for conducting the service evaluations for release WR2 and reporting these back to change management. You report to the Service Transition manager. ABC is implementing ITIL and a new risk based approach for service validation and testing. The risk management methodology uses the following risk profile and classifications: Risk profile table for deployment of releases to the main web site Likelihood (probability) High Acceptable Unacceptable Unacceptable Medium Acceptable Acceptable Unacceptable Low Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable Low Medium High Impact (effect) The Swirl logo is a Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce ITIL is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries Page 1 of 5

2 A third-party service provider, 3P, hosts a satellite website X for ABC. This site has been available 24x7 since its launch. Pilots of each release are done on the satellite website X before deployment to the main company website. Release WR2 is due to be deployed to the main website next week. Your service evaluation meeting for the WR2 release has identified the following findings and deviations from the Service Design baseline: Findings: a) The WR2 pilot met and exceeded the expected benefits. Customers liked the new look and feel and there was greater than anticipated usage and sales b) ABC s IT Department s capacity management process currently only monitors technical components whereas 3P monitors end-to-end service capacity. c) A security audit was missed and the consequential risk of a security breach has been assessed as low probability and medium impact. d) The IT operations manager is concerned about the current performance and availability issues on the main website. She assessed that the risk of downtime will increase to medium likelihood and high impact when WR2 is deployed. e) The project has budget to deploy WR2 but none for Early Life Support (ELS). There is a planned release WR3 due next quarter that has budget to fix some issues from WR2. Deviations from the Service Design baseline: 1. Actual usage of WR2 in the pilot was different to expectations in the service design; 2. The Return on Investment (ROI) differs from the service design because estimated total cost of service provision has increased by 25%; 3. The planned capacity and performance monitoring capability on the main company website is not ready; 4. Verification and testing is incomplete: 25% tests are not complete due to lack of testers and a security audit was missed; 5. The project has overspent and has no budget for ELS. Scenario Three An IT division provides IT services to support satellite broadcasting. Key functions in the division are: Service Desk Desktop Management design, integration, release and deployment of the desktop build and PC support. Application Management design, integration, release and deployment of applications As the Service Asset and Configuration Manager, you are responsible for the Configuration Management System (CMS). The CMS has the following layers: A. Presentation B. Knowledge processing C. Information Integration D. Data and information sources The Service Desk relies on good quality information about the IT services to maintain the first time fix rate. Staff access weather reports from the internet to diagnose incidents with satellite equipment in the field. Key support information is held in the integrated information layer. This enables the Service Desk staff to link incidents, known errors and enhancement requests to key Configuration Items (CI) easily. The key CIs include application release CIs and updated service catalogue entries. Configuration baselines of these key CIs are registered prior to production. The IT function managers are confused about the CMS. They have asked you to identify which of the following items are in scope of the CMS and if so, at which layer. 1. Production application release CI 2. Service change requests 3. Service catalogue item 4. Service desk web page to display desktop assets by location 5. Weather report 6. Configuration status reporting processor 7. Physical Configuration Management Database (CMDB) for desktop software builds 8. Definitive Media Library Scenario Four A global air cargo service operator based in the United States (U.S.) is planning to upgrade its Service Desk System (SDS) for all service desk agents and business users located in the U.S. and Europe. Prior to installing the new SDS module the workstation s operating environment must meet a minimum baseline configuration. All Service Desk agents workstations currently meet this prerequisite but the business users workstations are inconsistent. All user workstations in the U.S. and 50% of user workstations in Europe meet the prerequisite. The other half of the user workstations in Europe do not. There are about 1400 user workstations in Europe. Page 2 of 5

3 Company staff can pull (download) the new SDS modules from an intranet website but the prerequisites must be manually installed. The company has a software distribution tool which can push (install) the SDS modules to workstations via its enterprise-wide network. There is a license charge for using the tool to push the modules to each workstation, unless the tool discovers that the modules have already been installed. There are two onsite engineers who can perform manual upgrades; each engineer can complete the installation of the SDS modules and their prerequisites for up to 120 workstations per month. Manual is the most expensive way to deploy the upgrade, followed by push and then pull. The company is very keen to capture the upgrade benefits, but it needs to balance risks and costs. It has decided to fully deploy the SDS upgrade to all business users in Europe no more than three months following a trial launch for all service desk agents and all the business users in USA. Scenario Five You have recently been promoted to the position of Change Manager for a medium sized publishing company, with 750 employees and an annual turnover of $25million. There is a small IT and service management department of fifteen people. The company is run by a Board of Directors, chaired by the Managing Director. The other members of the Board are the Director of Finance and IT and the Director of Sales and Operations. The management structure of the organization is: There are 560 users of the IT services in Editorial and Business Operations, 40 in Financial Operations and 35 in Sales and Marketing. You have been asked to introduce a Change Management process following ITIL guidelines, and have been asked to suggest what the roles and responsibilities would be for reviewing and approving four sample Requests For Change (RFCs). A change policy has been agreed that states, All changes must be approved at the appropriate level. The four sample RFCs are: Page 3 of 5

4 RFC 1 start developing a new sales order processing system, in-house development cost $250,000. The Director of Sales and Operations has a budget of $252,000 for solutions development. RFC 2 routine replacement of faulty network cards in three PCs in the marketing department. RFC 3 deploy the latest planned release of the payroll system (purchased from a third party supplier, new releases are received four times a year). This will need 2 hours downtime during normal service hours. RFC 4 deploy a routine security patch to the operating system on the server (similar patches are deployed every month). This can be done overnight with no downtime. Scenario Six You are the Head of Service for a European market research company, with four locations in mainland France and one on the island of Corsica. Each location has two separate offices. In the last financial year, 41% of all calls to the Service Desk were requests to move PCs. The costs of PC moves are charged back to the users department. Each department has a budget for these moves and all moves costing more than 400 Euros need relevant approval. There are three different categories of move, which are, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The category is selected according to the quantity of PCs that require moving, and where they are being moved to. This determines who will carry out the move and the cost that will be charged back to the users department. Each category has an associated SLA. Category Bronze: SLA 5 working days - Up to five PCs within the same office Silver: SLA 10 working days - Up to five PCs to different offices in the same location Gold: SLA 15 working days - More than five PCs - All moves to a different location Move carried out by Internal IT Supplier A Supplier A Charged to users department 80 Euros per PC 401 Euros per PC Full cost estimated by Supplier A, including all labour and transport costs A web-based request fulfillment process with supporting workflow has recently been piloted. This allowed users to select additional services from a small menu of options. The IT Director and Financial Director want to reduce the number of calls to the Service Desk and provide better cost control. They have asked you to review the design of the request fulfillment menu and process to include PC moves. The design must be easy for the users to follow, and efficient. Scenario Seven You are the Head of IT Change Management for a large European bank. The bank started to introduce service management using ITIL guidelines twelve months ago. They have implemented processes, functions, and activities from all Service Lifecycle stages. There is a comprehensive Service Portfolio, and testing of new and changed services is carried out between the hours of 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. Two months ago, the Bank initiated a project to outsource the desktop PC support service from in-house support to a third party organization. The business case, scope, and test criteria for this project have all been agreed and baselines captured and verified in the Configuration Management System (CMS). These are all now subject to change management. The new service will be piloted in one area of the bank. The third party organization has an additional service available that is being considered by the IT Director. This additional service would refurbish old PCs and extend their life. Some of the Service Management staff on this project are confused over how ITIL Change Management applies to each of the Service Lifecycle stages. The IT Director has asked you to give them a presentation to improve their understanding, using relevant examples to show the stage where different types of Change are most likely to be planned. You are preparing your notes for the presentation. You decide to use the following examples of changes: Page 4 of 5

5 Change reference C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 Description of change Increase the scope of the project, to include the PC refurbishment service. The requirement is identified during the service pilot. Start the service pilot. Install a new PC for service readiness testing so that a new set of tests can be conducted Reset the password for the Chief Executive Officer so that he can access the business case for the project. Add a new requirement for service operational readiness tests. The requirement is identified during the service pilot. Scenario Eight You have recently been appointed as the Head of Service Transition for a large college in the U.S. The college has a reputation for innovation in the way they deliver education, using IT to reach over 20,000 users. A high number of changes and releases are deployed each week in order to meet rapidly changing user requirements. Two years ago, customer satisfaction with the Service Transition department was high. Effective and consistent standard processes and templates were in use across the whole of Service Management and these were documented in a Quality Manual. Since then the processes used for release testing and deployment have changed, however the documented processes in the Manual have not been updated. There are now frequent service failures and high incident volumes following release deployment, and problems discovered during testing are not always recorded. This has led to a significant deterioration in the reputation of the department and morale of Service Transition staff. The current tool used to support Service Transition is obsolete. This has led to availability issues and difficulties in obtaining support, which has also led to late release and deployments. The IT Director has decided to replace the current tool with a new one. In order to save time and costs, your predecessor decided that there was no need to formally evaluate possible tools. After talking with potential suppliers at a conference, he recommended ST4 from XYZ, as it provided value for money. The sales literature for ST4 states that it includes: An easy to use graphical user interface; Pre-defined workflows for Service Transition; Integrated standard processes and templates with on-line documentation; ITIL compliant test models; Powerful reporting facilities; A new, high performance custom-built database and operating system infrastructure. XYZ is a new European based developer and supplier of database, operating systems and tools. ST4 is their first tool for Service Transition, which was launched in Europe three months ago. XYZ predict a rapid take-up of this tool and its supporting infrastructure. The worldwide use of this infrastructure is currently very limited, and there are no staff trained on the tool in the US, however, XYZ has offered free comprehensive training on it for three people. Page 5 of 5