🎯 Exam Caveats & Cheatsheet

Everything you need to remember on exam day — traps, numbers, decision trees, and flash cards

Must-Memorise Numbers
Named Exam Traps
Decision Tree: Which Practice?
Decision Tree: Which Guiding Principle?
Flash Cards — Core Definitions
Flash Cards — 7 Guiding Principles
Flash Cards — 15 Practice Purposes (One Line Each)
Final Checklist Before the Exam

Must-Memorise Numbers

Fact	Value
Total exam questions	40
Exam duration	60 minutes (75 min for non-native speakers)
Pass mark	26 / 40 — 65%
Bloom’s levels	1 (recall) and 2 (understand)
Guiding principles	7
Dimensions of service management	4
SVS components	5 (guiding principles, governance, SVC, practices, CI)
SVC activities	6 (Plan, Improve, Engage, Design & Transition, Obtain/Build, Deliver & Support)
LO6 practices (purpose only)	15
LO7 practices (in depth)	7
Total ITIL 4 practices	34
Marks for LO7 (7 practices in depth)	17 / 40 = 42.5%
PESTLE factors	6 (Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Legal, Environmental)
Steps in the Continual Improvement Model	7

Named Exam Traps

Trap 1 — Utility AND Warranty Are Both Required

Value requires both utility (fit for purpose) and warranty (fit for use). A service that does exactly what was asked but is constantly unavailable has utility but no warranty — and therefore provides no value.

Customer = defines requirements and owns outcomes
User = uses the service day-to-day
Sponsor = signs the cheque (authorises the budget) They can be the same person or three different people.

Trap 3 — Output vs Outcome

Output = what is produced (a dashboard, a report, a deployed application)
Outcome = what is achieved because of that output (reduced MTTR, informed decisions, faster sales) The exam will give you an output and call it an outcome, or vice versa.

Trap 4 — Principles Are Universal, Not Sequential

All 7 guiding principles apply simultaneously. No single principle has priority over another. When a question asks “which principle is MOST relevant,” look for the specific challenge described in the scenario.

Trap 5 — Optimize THEN Automate (Not Simultaneously)

Automate only after optimising. Automating a broken process scales the problem. The principle is Optimize and Automate — in that order.

Trap 6 — Incident Management Does NOT Investigate Root Cause

Incident management restores service. Root cause investigation is problem management. Closing an incident with a workaround is valid — the permanent fix is a separate problem management activity.

Trap 7 — Known Error Is a Problem Record, Not an Incident

A known error lives in the problem management space. It means the root cause has been identified but not yet fixed. A workaround is documented against the known error record.

Trap 8 — Service Request vs Incident

Service request = planned, expected, pre-defined (“I’d like a new laptop”)
Incident = unplanned, unexpected, disruptive (“my laptop stopped working”) Service requests should be fulfilled from a service catalogue. If they require individual assessment each time, they are not properly defined as service requests.

Trap 9 — Standard Change Is Pre-Approved

Standard changes do not need individual CAB approval every time. They have been pre-approved because they are low risk and follow a well-defined procedure. Emergency and Normal changes require individual authorisation.

Trap 10 — Change Enablement, Not Change Management

The practice is called Change Enablement — not Change Management. The name signals the intention to enable change, not just control or block it.

Trap 11 — SLA Is a Relationship, Not Just a Document

Service Level Management is ongoing — regular service reviews, performance monitoring, and conversations with customers. An SLA sitting in a drawer unreviewed is a failure of SLM.

Trap 12 — The Service Desk Is Human-Centric

The service desk requires emotional intelligence and communication skills. It is not just a technical escalation point. ITIL 4 explicitly states empathy is a service desk skill.

Trap 13 — PESTLE Factors Are External (Not Controllable)

PESTLE factors constrain the four dimensions from outside — the organisation responds to them, it does not control them.

Trap 14 — Start Where You Are ≠ Never Change

“Start where you are” means assess first before discarding. It does not mean leaving everything unchanged. The principle guards against throwing away existing value unnecessarily.

Trap 15 — Continual Improvement Step Order

You cannot define “where we want to be” (Step 3) without first establishing “where we are now” (Step 2). Always baseline first.

Trap 16 — Value Is Co-Created, Not Delivered

ITIL 4 replaces “delivering value” with co-creating value. Both provider and consumer contribute. Value is not a thing the provider hands over — it emerges from the relationship and activities of both parties.

Decision Tree: Which Practice?

flowchart TD
    START["🔔 Something has happened or been requested"]
    Q1{Is service\ninterrupted or\ndegraded?}
    Q2{Is it a\nuser request\nfor something\nexpected?}
    Q3{Do you need\nto change\nsomething?}
    Q4{Root cause\ninvestigation\nneeded?}
    Q5{Setting or\nmonitoring\nservice targets?}

    INC["⚠ Incident Management\n→ Restore service ASAP"]
    PROB["🔍 Problem Management\n→ Find root cause\n→ Document known error"]
    SR["📋 Service Request Mgmt\n→ Fulfil from service catalogue"]
    CE["🔧 Change Enablement\n→ Assess risk, authorise, schedule"]
    SLM["📊 Service Level Mgmt\n→ Monitor and review SLAs"]
    SD["🖥 Service Desk\n→ Single point of contact\n→ Captures all of the above"]

    START --> Q1
    Q1 -->|Yes| INC
    Q1 -->|No| Q2
    INC -->|"Incident recurring?"| Q4
    Q4 -->|Yes| PROB
    Q2 -->|Yes| SR
    Q2 -->|No| Q3
    Q3 -->|Yes| CE
    Q3 -->|No| Q5
    Q5 -->|Yes| SLM
    SD -.->|"Entry point for"| INC & SR

Decision Tree: Which Guiding Principle?

flowchart TD
    SCEN["Scenario described..."]
    Q1{"Key word?"}
    FV["Focus on Value\n(customer experience,\nbusiness outcome)"]
    SW["Start Where You Are\n(existing processes,\ncurrent state, baseline)"]
    PI["Progress Iteratively\n(Agile, iteration,\nfeedback loop)"]
    CV["Collaborate & Visibility\n(silos, stakeholder buy-in,\ntransparency)"]
    TH["Think Holistically\n(integration, dependencies,\nall four dimensions)"]
    KS["Keep Simple\n(too many steps,\nbureaucracy, overhead)"]
    OA["Optimize & Automate\n(efficiency, waste,\nautomation)"]

    SCEN --> Q1
    Q1 -->|"Value / customer"| FV
    Q1 -->|"Existing / reuse"| SW
    Q1 -->|"Steps / feedback"| PI
    Q1 -->|"Silo / invisible"| CV
    Q1 -->|"End-to-end / impact"| TH
    Q1 -->|"Complex / overhead"| KS
    Q1 -->|"Automate / efficient"| OA

Flash Cards — Core Definitions

Term	Definition
Service	A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve, without managing specific costs and risks
Service management	A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value to customers in the form of services
Utility	Functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need — fit for purpose
Warranty	Assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements — fit for use
Customer	Defines requirements and takes responsibility for outcomes of service consumption
User	Uses services day-to-day
Sponsor	Authorises the budget for service consumption
Outcome	A result for a stakeholder enabled by outputs
Output	A tangible or intangible deliverable of an activity
Risk	A possible event that could cause harm, loss, or make objectives harder to achieve
IT asset	Any financially valuable component contributing to delivery of an IT product or service
Event	Any change of state that has significance for management of a service or CI
Configuration item (CI)	Any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT service
Change	The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could affect services
Incident	An unplanned interruption or reduction in quality of a service
Problem	A cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents
Known error	A problem that has been analysed but not yet resolved
Service offering	A formal description of services designed to address target consumer group needs
Value stream	A series of steps to create and deliver products and services to consumers
Practice	A set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective

Flash Cards — 7 Guiding Principles

#	Principle	Core Idea
1	Focus on Value	Everything traces back to stakeholder value
2	Start Where You Are	Assess before discarding; do not start from scratch
3	Progress Iteratively with Feedback	Small steps + feedback loops
4	Collaborate and Promote Visibility	Break silos; make work visible
5	Think and Work Holistically	End-to-end; consider all four dimensions
6	Keep It Simple and Practical	Minimum steps; outcome-based
7	Optimize and Automate	Optimise first, then automate

Flash Cards — 15 Practice Purposes (One Line Each)

Practice	Purpose (one line)
Continual Improvement	Align practices and services with changing business needs through ongoing improvement
Information Security Management	Protect confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information
Relationship Management	Establish and nurture strategic and tactical stakeholder relationships
Supplier Management	Ensure suppliers are managed to support seamless service provision
Change Enablement	Maximise successful changes by assessing risk and managing authorisation
Incident Management	Restore normal service operation as quickly as possible
IT Asset Management	Manage IT asset lifecycle to maximise value and manage risk
Monitoring and Event Management	Observe services and record changes of state (events)
Problem Management	Reduce likelihood and impact of incidents by managing root causes
Release Management	Make new and changed services and features available for use
Service Configuration Management	Ensure accurate information about services and CIs is available when needed
Service Desk	Single point of contact to capture incidents and service requests
Service Level Management	Set and monitor business-based service level targets
Service Request Management	Handle pre-defined user-initiated requests effectively
Deployment Management	Move new or changed components to live (or test/staging) environments

Final Checklist Before the Exam

← 07 — Seven Practices

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