ITIL-4 - Understand 7 ITIL practices (43% of the exam) - Section 7.2

Explain change enablement and service request management in detail, including the three change types and the nature of a service request.

Explain change enablement, whose purpose is to maximise successful changes by assessing risk and authorising changes, and the three change types - standard, normal, and emergency - including which change authority is appropriate for each. Explain service request management, recognising that a service request is a predefined, normal part of service delivery and must not be handled as an incident.

Change enablementStandard, normal, emergency changesChange authorityService request management

Practice question for this objective

Free sampleUnderstand 7 ITIL practiceshard

A finance analyst at Thornbury Council contacts the service desk to ask for a new licensed copy of an approved reporting application to be installed on her laptop, a request the desk fulfils dozens of times a month against an agreed procedure. The analyst is not reporting any fault; her existing tools work normally. Under ITIL 4, how should the service desk treat this, and why?

AAs an incident, because installing new software changes the state of her device and any change to a service should be logged as an incident
BAs a problem, because a recurring high volume of the same request points to an underlying cause that problem management should investigate
CAs an emergency change, because installing software modifies the environment and any modification needs expedited change authorisation
DAs a service request, because it is a request from a user for something normal that is part of agreed service delivery, handled by service request management Correct

A request for something normal and expected within agreed service delivery is a service request, not an incident, problem, or change. A service request is a normal, pre-agreed part of service delivery with a known fulfilment procedure; because nothing is broken, it is distinct from an incident, and its routine nature distinguishes it from a problem or change.

Why A is wrong: Tempting because both flow through the service desk, but an incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in quality of a service, and nothing here is broken or degraded, so it cannot be an incident.

Why B is wrong: Tempting because the volume is high, but a problem is a cause of one or more incidents; a normal, expected demand for a supported service is not a fault to be diagnosed.

Why C is wrong: Tempting because software installs do alter a device, but routine fulfilment of a pre-agreed request is handled by service request management, not raised as an emergency change, which is reserved for urgent unplanned situations.

Why D is correct: Correct: ITIL 4 defines a service request as a request from a user for something normal and expected as part of agreed service delivery, and installing an approved application against a standard procedure fits this exactly.

See more ITIL-4 practice questions, answers explained.

Exam traps in Understand 7 ITIL practices

Answers that look right on this material and are not. Each one is a distractor from a different question in the ITIL-4 bank for this domain.

It is an unplanned interruption to a service that must be resolved to restore normal operation as quickly as possible.
Why it is wrong: Tempting because both are user-initiated contacts, but this is the definition of an incident; a service request is a normal part of service delivery, not a disruption to be restored.
As an incident, because any unplanned contact from a user about their access to a service is treated as a degradation that must be restored.
Why it is wrong: This is tempting because access problems can be incidents, but an incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in quality of a service; Ravi has lost nothing, so there is no interruption to restore.
A service request is simply a high-priority type of incident that must be resolved within a tighter resolution target than an ordinary interruption.
Why it is wrong: This is tempting because both are logged by the service desk, but a service request is not an incident at all and is not defined by priority or resolution targets.

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