PeopleCert itil-soa online test
ITIL Service Offerings and Agreements Exam
What students need to know about the itil-soa exam
- Total 14 Questions & Answers
Question 1
Scenario
A travel company specializes in providing complete holiday packages to meet customer
requirements. There have been instances over the past year where the business has been unable to
process holiday bookings due to failure of the IT services. Sales have been lost and the failure has
been raised at board level. The IT director has assured the board that the situation will be rectified.
Most holiday bookings are made either by telephone via the company's call centre or through a
dedicated website. Both interface with the same back-end booking-processing service. Apart from
the call centre and website, the main business services map onto organizational departments and
cover: marketing, finance, business operations and central administration.
After some initial investigation within the IT organization, it is clear that the intermittent failures,
which were related to a lack of capacity, have occurred during exceptional peak holiday booking
periods. The IT organization is not certain when or if these are going to occur in the future. Some
booking periods are predictable, such as those associated with promotional offers. Other patterns
are totally unpredictable as they often coincide with bad weather being experienced where
customers live.
You have been asked how the activities of demand management, based on ITIL practices, can be
used to address this issue.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options is the BEST set of actions required to resolve the issue?
- A. Identify the pattern of customer enquiries for holiday bookings and the resulting volume, frequency and location of staff activity. Document these as patterns of business activity (PBA) Gain an understanding of the different roles that are performed by staff from all business units and how these relate to the PBA for all business processes. Use this information to identify any shortfall in capacity and create cost estimates of additional resource required to enable the IT services to meet the PBA. Recommend that, where PBA are very predictable, investment should be made in additional resource. Where PBA are unpredictable, the risks associated with railing to meet demand should be discussed with the business managers, and mitigation actions agreed.
- B. Identify the pattern of customer enquiries for holiday bookings and the resulting volume, frequency and location of staff activity. Document these as PBA. Gain an understanding of the different roles that are performed by the call centre staff and how these relate to the PBA for the call centre business processes. Use this information to identify any shortfall in capacity and create cost estimates of additional resource required to enable the IT services to meet the PBA. Discuss the risks associated with failing to meet demand with the business managers. Reach agreement on how to avoid a repeat of the IT failures caused by demand at busy periods.
- C. Identify and understand the PBA resulting from metrics of all the IT services. Ensure that the volume, frequency and location of service use is taken into account. Gain an understanding of how the PBA relate to the use of the IT assets especially the hardware and software that may be the cause of the IT failures. Once these activities have been completed, the PBA will be used to plan and implement sufficient capacity to meet all demand at all times. Discuss the risks associated with failing to meet demand with capacity management and technical staff. Reach agreement on how to avoid a repeat of the IT failures caused by demand at busy periods.
- D. Immediately implement demand management, document the process and allocate roles and responsibilities. The demand manager should initiate an activity to identify and understand user profiles resulting from business use of the IT services. Code the user profiles linking them to the associated business roles. Match the user profiles to the IT services and analyze any shortfall in capacity required to meet the business objectives. Create a business case for the additional resource required to exceed the business demand for the IT services to account for unpredictable business activity. Work with service portfolio management and financial management to agree on the approval of the investment and initiate the project to acquire all the additional resources.
Answer:
A
Question 2
Scenario
The IT organization of a manufacturing company is carrying out an annual review of its service
portfolio. There is limited budget available for the next year and some projects may be delayed or
cancelled. The company has control of most of its IT services, however some are mandated by the
company's corporate owners.
The following services are under review:
Service 1: Web ordering service. This is a new service that will enable the company to fulfill its
strategy to sell products on-line and increase its customer base by 20%. Only high-level business
requirements have been established so far but. if the project goes ahead, the system will be provided
by a supplier using standard applications and technology. A business case has been created which
shows the ratio of value-to-cost to be much greater than one.
Service 2: Sales office service. The service has grown from a number of separate applications that
have been combined into one suite. The technical solution for each application is similar but some
use different versions of the same operating system. The applications themselves provide the
required utility and support their business outcomes well. There is some overlap in functionality
across the set of applications contained in the service suite.
Service 3: Finance reporting service. The service is used by the finance department to create
statutory reports to fulfill legal obligations. The service is hosted on a legacy system. The cost of
supporting the service is increasing gradually and the return obtained from the service is decreasing.
Eventually the service will be replaced by the new enterprise resource planning (ERP) service. It is
projected that, over the next two years, the ratio of value-to-cost will drop to less than one.
Service 4: This is a new ERP service that is being implemented across all companies in the
corporate group. It will eventually replace many existing services including the finance reporting
service. The service has been approved and chartered, and has a current status of "design". A large
number of assets have been allocated to this project. As this service is mandated by the corporate
owners, no further decision is required.
Refer to Scenario:
As part of the service portfolio management team you have been asked to recommend whether
investments should be made in these services in the next year.
Which of the following options is the BEST set of decisions to make for the services?
- A. Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design project Service 2 - replace. Set up project to replace the set of applications with a single application designed to support the business outcomes Service 3 - retire. Mark the service for retirement and set up a retirement project. This will make best use of resources and ensure that information is migrated to the ERP service.
- B. Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue, project Service 2 - retain. Keep the service and support Service 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this project will use assets that will be allocated review. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the it in its current form service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual
- C. Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design project Service 2 - rationalize. Set up a project to identify the best way of retaining the support of the business outcomes but eliminating the duplication of functionality and supporting components Service 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement project will use assets that will be allocated elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual review.
- D. Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the project Service 2 re-factor. Set up project to redesign the applications to concentrate on the core functionality of the service Service 3 - retain. As the service is needed to fulfill legal and statutory compliance it should be retained.
Answer:
C
Question 3
Scenario
A company provides an internet-based gift delivery service which is highly dependent upon IT
services provided by the internal IT organization. A year ago the customer payments service that
supports the gift ordering website regularly experienced poor availability. The organization hired a
service management consultant to assess why the IT services were performing poorly and to rectify
the situation.
As part of the solution, the consultant implemented service level management and adopted the role
of interim service level manager. Service level agreements were negotiated with the business and
agreed. The necessary underpinning agreements were negotiated and put in place. Regular
monitoring and reporting was implemented. Monthly service review meetings with the business unit
managers were established to discuss IT service performance and any issues and improvements.
Within a year of the start of the initiative the gift ordering website IT service was performing at
98.7% availability, a significant improvement.
This month's service review meeting was attended by the chief executive officer (CEO) after concerns
were expressed about the most recent availability figure for the customer payments service, which
was 94%. This covered the period which included one of the traditionally most popular gift ordering
times. The consultant stated that the poor availability was almost entirely due to an incident that
occurred during one of the busiest periods and. as a result, the overall monthly availability
percentage was low. Initial investigation has shown that the service desk used the SLA to designate
the incident as a 'Priority 2'. This was however lower than the 'Priority 1" the business believed the
incident should have been. The subsequent delay in restoration of the service meant some customer
orders were lost.
The CEO reminded the consultant that a repeat of such an incident would not only have a major
effect on monthly revenues but also seriously affect the company's reputation. The consultant
agreed that this was unacceptable and committed to review this issue and report back to the CEO.
Refer to Scenario
- A. The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a service improvement plan (SIP) to address the issue. Differing views relating to the cause of the low availability mean it should be investigated thoroughly to establish whether the slow restoration of service was due to a lack of understanding by the service desk, incorrect service level targets in the SLA or simply that, owing to the type of failure, restoration was always going to take that length of time. Appropriate action can then be taken to rectify the issue.
- B. The issue is with the service desk and its incorrect interpretation of the SLA and failure to escalate the issues. The SLM should agree to set up a SIP for the service desk. The operational level agreement (OLA) with the service desk should be reviewed to ensure that it underpins the SLAs. The SIP should include the retraining of the service desk staff. A complete review of the service desk tools should ensure that they can be used to prioritize incidents correctly by passing through targets agreed into the priority matrix of the toolset.
- C. The issue is clearly a breakdown in understanding regarding the critical business periods and the matching of these to the availability targets in the SLAs. The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a SIP to investigate the issue. The SLAs should be reviewed with the business to ensure that they match with the business needs and, if necessary are updated. Review and update any underpinning agreements as necessary to ensure that they support the targets in the SLAs.
- D. The SLM should conduct an investigation by reviewing incidents and problems. Ask the IT service desk and support staff what ideas they have to resolve the issue. Review the impact on all other SLAs. OLAs contracts and procedures. Review the maturity associated with the service level management process and take steps to improve this process if necessary. Create a SIP with an associated business case for presentation to the chief executive officer (CEO).
Answer:
A
Question 4
A major international company owns shopping malls in many countries. They are responsible for the
security, safety and comfort of shoppers visiting the stores in the mall and the facilities management
of the locations. The company relies on IT services provided by its IT division. The IT division consists
of a corporate IT department at the company's headquarters and a local IT team at each mall. The IT
division obtains IT services and products from over 100 different suppliers globally.
The management of suppliers within the IT division is currently performed by the local IT teams in
each country, often by the most appropriate technical manager. This has resulted in inconsistent
processes and levels of service across the countries.
The management team realizes that this is an ineffective use of IT resources and will have an impact
on the future growth of the company. They are currently reviewing the situation and wish to develop
supplier management processes that are more closely aligned to ITIL practices. The management
team recently conducted a survey of all of the local IT teams within the different countries to collect
details about the number and type of contracts and suppliers.
The IT division has developed and implemented many other ITIL processes over the last two years,
which has led to significant improvements. The management team would like to build on this success
and develop and implement a supplier management process. You have recently joined the corporate
IT department and have been given the results of the survey carried out by the management team.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options is the BEST sequence of activities to adopt in order to implement
a supplier management process and to bring the current situation under control?
- A. 1. Design and develop a supplier management process. 2. Define and agree a supplier policy. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a supplier and contract management information system (SCMIS) from the survey feedback. 5. Deploy the process in the corporate IT department as a pilot. 6. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each contract and supplier. 7. Deploy the process in the remaining countries and conduct a program of awareness and training.
- B. 1. Define and agree a supplier policy. 2. Design and develop a supplier management process. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a SCMIS from the survey feedback. 5. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each supplier. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Identify where there are duplicate or multiple contracts in place with suppliers and instigate an initiative to review these with the relevant suppliers.
- C. 1. Carry out a further review of the suppliers used by each store in each country. 2. Establish and populate the SCMIS from the results of the exercise. 3. Design and develop a supplier management process. 4. Define and agree a supplier policy. 5. Appoint a supplier manager from the corporate IT department to manage all contracts and all suppliers. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Renew all contracts to try to obtain better terms and conditions.
- D. 1. Define and agree a supplier policy. 2. Agree which individuals in the corporate IT department and local IT teams are accountable for the management of each supplier. 3. Use the results of the survey to categorize each supplier to determine the type of relationship required. 4. Establish and populate a SCMIS from the survey feedback. 5. Design and develop a supplier management process. 6. Deploy the process in all countries and conduct a program of awareness and training. 7. Work with the service level manager to ensure that all contracts correctly underpin service level agreements.
Answer:
D
Question 5
Refer to Scenario
An IT services company has been providing hosted and managed IT services to a number of major
customers for over 20 years. It has invested heavily in ITIL-based service management processes over
the last five years, which has resulted in an increase in the quality of the IT services and an increase
in customer satisfaction with the services. This activity has led to a significant growth in the number
of customers that the company serves.
The company has implemented all of the service design, service transition and service operation
processes to some extent, and is now developing other processes based on ITIL service strategy. As a
result of this latest activity they have recognized that their existing service management tool is
limited in its ability to support several existing processes, and all of the planned new ones. The
supplier of the existing tool is reducing its investment in future development of the tool and is,
therefore, unwilling to commit to any additional new facilities or functionality. This has now become
an issue for the company and, as a result, they are looking to replace the existing tool with a more
comprehensive alternative.
The company plans to develop a requirements specification for the replacement tool and is redwing
the areas that need to be considered, including its deployment throughout the organization. The
budget for the new tool is limited, therefore it is essential that the new tool can be implemented and
used as quickly as possible in order to obtain maximum return on investment (ROI).
Which one of the following options provides the BEST description of the areas that should be
addressed by the requirements specification for the new tool?
- A. The usability and functionality of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the number of customers and users of the services and their geographical locations The plans for the deployment and the associated documentation needed for the tool.
- B. The utility and warranty of the new tool The conformance of the tool to international open standards The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
- C. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirements The number of potential users of the tool together with the number of licenses and their geographical locations required for its deployment The timing of the deployment and the associated tool documentation.
- D. The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to migrate data from existing tools and to integrate with other tools The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deployment The type and timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
Answer:
D
Question 6
Scenario
An IT services company provides IT services to many customers. The company has grown rapidly over
the last three years and has recognized the need to implement service management processes to
ensure that they continue to provide services that meet their customer's needs. A service
management implementation project was set up a year ago and most processes are now in place
including service level management and service catalogue management. In addition a business
relationship manager has been allocated.
An opportunity has arisen to engage a new customer, which could lead to a very large contract.
Contact has been made with the potential customer and a meeting arranged. This will be the first
time that these processes have been used to engage a new customer and the IT service manager
wishes to make sure that all concerned are clear of their roles.
Refer to Scenario
Which one of the following options CORRECTLY assigns the responsibilities to the service level
manager, service catalogue manager and the business relationship manager?
Responsibilities:
- A. Service catalogue manager - 3, 7, 8, 9 Service level manager - 1, 2, 4 Business relationship manager- 5, 6, 10
- B. Service catalogue manager - 1, 7 Service level manager - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 Business relationship manager- 2, 5, 9
- C. Service catalogue manager - 1, 8 Service level manager - 2, 3, 5, 9 Business relationship manager- 4, 6, 7, 10
- D. Service catalogue manager - 1, 8, 9 Service level manager - 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 Business relationship manager- 4, 6
Answer:
D
Question 7
Scenario
A retail company has enjoyed significant growth in profit over the past year due to negotiating lower
buying costs from its suppliers. The organization wishes to reinvest some of this profit to fund a
program of change to optimize the use of IT services. They hope this will support revenue growth in
the next financial year whilst maintaining profitability.
The program consists of two main initiatives:
An expansion of the on-line retailing services to offer more functionality
Enhancement of the marketing service to allow greater targeting of promotional offers.
There are various options for providing these services that involve use of the current infrastructure or
the new virtualization technology, which is slowly being deployed across the organization. The board
of directors wishes to conduct a financial review over the next 3 months to compare the cost of
providing each service. Projected business revenues will allow the return on investment (ROI) of each
option to be calculated. This review will provide an input to the IT organizations service portfolio
management process, allowing the various investment options to be considered and an informed
decision to be made.
The organization has a good appreciation of its IT costs along with a mature service catalogue and
configuration management system (CMS).
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options would be the BEST approach to providing the information for the
financial review of the service options?
- A. Appoint an IT finance manager to implement budgeting and accounting for IT services. Create a cost model that takes into account direct and indirect costs, as well as fixed and variable costs. Use the cost model to calculate the cost of providing the IT services and provide the information to service portfolio management (SPM).
- B. Produce a summary of current costs, apportioning all costs directly to the appropriate service. Any investment in virtualization or new infrastructure should be shared equally between the two services. This creates a baseline for comparison with the anticipated business revenues and ROI that will enable a business case to be developed for each option.
- C. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services. Use service level agreements to understand how the services are used and create a model for the services, ensuring that both current and projected costs are shared appropriately. These costs can then be compared with the cost of outsourcing the service and with the anticipated business revenue.
- D. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services. The various options for providing the service, including those requiring investment in new infrastructure, can then be costed. Using the projected revenues supplied, a calculation can establish the ROI for each option. These costs and ROI for each option can then be compared through the service portfolio management process and used as an input to develop a business case for the most advantageous options.
Answer:
D
Question 8
Scenario
A commercial IT services company has been successful for many years. Its key strategic differentiator
has been the provision of new services to meet customers needs in very short lead times. Recently
profits have dipped, forcing senior management to take a look at the lifecycle costs of providing the
IT services to their external customers.
The organization has had a service catalogue containing customer and supporting views for some
time. It is an essential source of information about the IT services and is used by both the business
relationship managers and the IT services teams. Services are designed internally but often
transitioned and operated in partnership with other suppliers.
For each service, the service catalogue currently contains:
A description of the service
Summary of the service level targets
The level of support and support details
Details of the supporting services and components
Details of services obtained from suppliers
When sales leads are obtained from potential new customers, the requirements are compared with
services in the service catalogue and, if no matching service can be found, a project is set up to
quickly develop a new service. In the past this has been justified as meeting the needs of the
customers, and full business cases were not developed.
A senior service manager has suggested introducing a service portfolio management process and
needs to get the support of the IT management team. The management team wishes to know what
extra information would be included in a service portfolio over and above what is already in the
service catalogue and what value it would be to them.
The company is looking to restrict investment in new resources. Therefore, only a few projects can be
authorized in the next budget cycle.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following sets of statements BEST describes the elements that a service portfolio
contains in addition to the elements in a service catalogue, and describes the additional value service
portfolio management would bring to the IT services company in resolving their current issues?
- A. The service portfolio will include: resource allocation; support terms and conditions; ordering and request procedures; the value proposition; offerings and packages. The service portfolio will show where additional resources will be required to operate new services. Service portfolio management will enable the organization to rationalize existing services to optimize the use of resources.
- B. The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; business outcomes supported; cost and pricing. The service portfolio will show the proportion of resources acquired from key suppliers so that the cost of new services can be accurately estimated. Creating a service portfolio that includes services in the service pipeline, as well as those in the service catalogue, will enable new services currently being developed to be included in service offerings. This increased visibility of new services extends the range available for new opportunities.
- C. The service portfolio will include: ordering and request procedures; service level targets; support terms and conditions; details of services obtained from suppliers. The service portfolio will show the resources and capabilities that are needed to improve the services in the service catalogue. Service portfolio management will enable the organization to expand the service catalogue to include details of service requests and standard changes, providing a valuable self-help portal to users.
- D. The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; investment priorities; value propositions. The service portfolio will show where resources are used across all stages of the service lifecycle both within the provider and where they have been acquired from suppliers. Service portfolio management will improve the organizations ability to compare potential investments and make sound decisions.
Answer:
D
Question 9
Scenario
An internet banking organization plans to expand operations outside of its current market. Whilst the
exact details have yet to be established, it is clear that the IT organization must expand its service
offerings within the current portfolio in order to support this growth. It is equally apparent that
external customer needs for banking will vary from market to market and that consequently this will
require development of completely new service offerings.
You are the head of service within the IT organization. You helped the organization adopt the ITIL
framework some years ago and now have most processes in place. Service owners are allocated for
the main IT services. Mature service portfolio, service catalogue and service level management
processes are in place.
The expansion requires ownership of a business relationship management process and you are
considering the role profile for this post.
Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options provides the BEST overview of the business relationship
managers (BRM) responsibilities which will be key to support the expansion?
- A. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will work closely with the customer to understand the value proposition of any new IT services that will be required to support the expansion program. The BRM will liaise with the service level manager and service owners to develop the designs of any new IT services, thereby creating value for both parties. The BRM will ensure customer expectations of new services do not exceed what they have agreed to pay for.
- B. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will identify the business requirements associated with the expansion program especially concentrating on gaining a clear understanding of business outcomes and business drivers. The BRM will liaise with the service portfolio manager to understand how the business outcomes can be supported by IT services, and, where possible, create new services and service offerings for inclusion in the service catalogue. It is key that the BRM understands how changes to the customer environment in different operating markets might affect the delivery of services.
- C. The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain their trust, and help them develop their business area. This would help both the IT organization and the company become more successful. If the BRM commits time and energy, it should be possible to improve the IT services quickly to meet the needs of the expansion program and therefore achieve the business objectives. The BRM should take responsibility for the services and their development, while the service level manager will take responsibility for customer liaison. The BRM will take ultimate responsibility for ensuring the customer needs are met by the service provider by managing any third parties in the emerging markets.
- D. The BRM will have primary responsibility for engaging actively with the customers. They should develop a mutual understanding with the customers and have a good working knowledge of their business. The BRM would also work closely with the service owners to understand the profile and usage of the IT services, to help develop the IT services and to create a new service catalogue for the new markets. The BRM will articulate service provider business requirement to the customer to prevent them asking for services that would involve them paying more for the IT service they receive.
Answer:
B
Question 10
Scenario
A clothing manufacturer has made a decision to supplement factory-based retail outlets by opening a
series of stores at out-of-town shopping malls.
The internal IT organization provides support to many mission-critical business systems for both the
manufacturing and retail operations. It must increase its portfolio of services and service options to
meet the planned new expansion. Typically, the business is subject to seasonal patterns of demand,
which recently have begun to exceed the capability of some of the IT services. This has led to periods
of poor performance of some of the critical systems and therefore to degraded service quality. In
periods of minimal demand, there is a surplus of capacity and performance is optimal.
There is concern that the additional business demand from the new stores will exacerbate these
service performance issues.
The board of directors, made up of representatives from each business unit, has asked for a review of
the business supply and demand issues currently being faced by the IT organization. Many service
management processes have been implemented including service portfolio management and
capacity management. However, IT does not have a demand management process.
Additionally, performance levels on many of the supporting services have remained unchanged for
the past 3 years, even though some may now be less relevant to the overall performance of the
critical services.
Refer to the Scenario.
The review of the supply and demand issues concluded that the implementation of a demand
management process could help the IT organization address the issues. Which one of the following
options provides the BEST solution to both the problems currently being faced and those related to
the proposed expansion?
- A. The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business units requirements in order to understand their patterns of business activity (PBA) and corresponding usage of the IT services. Differentiated service offerings should be developed to match PBA; this will make better use of available IT resources. Supporting service performance targets should be amended to reflect these changes. Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the companys expansion plans.
- B. An analysis should be carried out of each business units patterns of business activity (PBA), and appropriate services for each business unit selected from the service catalogue. In conjunction with the finance department, a revised cost model should be introduced to allow for the fluctuation in usage and costs. Differential charging should be introduced to address the issues of service quality.
- C. The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business units requirements to understand their current usage of the IT services and where seasonal variations lead to fluctuations in usage. Discussions should take place with the business units to impose limits within specific time periods for each business units usage of IT services. Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the companys expansion plans.
- D. The service portfolio should be reviewed and the business units cumulative service usage should be reviewed, monitored and analyzed. Work with the business to develop short-term measures to manage demand for the IT services, such as delayed or batch processing of retail transactions. Service levels should be reviewed to take into account changes to supporting service performance targets and, where applicable, agreements should be updated through change management.
Answer:
A