220-1102 Operational Procedures Practice Question
A technician is tasked with deploying a new software version to all company workstations. The change has been approved by the Change Advisory Board (CAB). During the rollout, the technician discovers that several workstations are not compatible. According to change management best practices, what should the technician do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse 'proceeding with what works' (Option A) as pragmatic, but the exam tests adherence to formal change control procedures over technical expediency.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Pause the deployment and report the issue to the CAB for guidance
Change management best practices require that any deviation from the approved plan—such as incompatibility discovered during rollout—must be reported to the Change Advisory Board (CAB) for reassessment. The CAB is responsible for evaluating risks and approving changes; proceeding without their guidance violates the change control process and could introduce unapproved risks or disruptions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Proceed with the deployment and skip the incompatible workstations
Why it's wrong here
Proceeding with the deployment and skipping the incompatible workstations creates an unauthorized exception to the approved change plan, leaving those endpoints on an outdated software version that may contain unpatched vulnerabilities. This configuration drift and the absence of CAB approval mean the affected systems will fall out of compliance with the organization's security and operational baselines, and any future troubleshooting or audit will reveal an undocumented deviation. Additionally, skipping the workstations does not resolve the incompatibility; it only postpones it and may cause inconsistent behavior across the fleet.
- ✓
Pause the deployment and report the issue to the CAB for guidance
Why this is correct
The correct action is to pause the rollout immediately to prevent the incompatible workstations from receiving a package that could trigger driver conflicts, application failures, or security software instability. Escalating the issue to the CAB allows the change to be formally re-evaluated, with options including a targeted exception, a phased rollout, or a compatibility patch—all while maintaining an auditable change history. Pausing and reporting ensures the change remains controlled, risk-assessed, and authorized, which is the core purpose of change management.
- ✗
Replace the incompatible workstations immediately with new ones
Why it's wrong here
Replacing the incompatible workstations without prior CAB approval is a separate change and a capital expense that falls entirely outside the scope of the software deployment request. This action not only violates change management policy but also introduces new hardware that requires its own testing, imaging, and user migration, resulting in significant unplanned downtime and potential data loss. The technician would be making an uninformed procurement decision, bypassing the financial and technical review that the CAB and IT leadership are responsible for.
- ✗
Apply the software anyway and troubleshoot errors later
Why it's wrong here
Force-applying the software to workstations that are known to be incompatible risks system instability such as recurring blue screens, application conflicts, or failure of critical line-of-business applications, which could halt production work. Troubleshooting after a forced installation is reactive and inefficient, and any resulting outages would be an unapproved operational impact that could have been avoided by following the change process. This action also violates change control because it goes beyond the approved deployment scope and makes the technician accountable for an unplanned system failure.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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