This PCDOE practice question tests your understanding of managing service incidents. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
During a post-mortem, you identify that an incident was caused by a configuration change that was not reviewed. Which of the following is the most effective preventive action?
Add more monitoring alerts.
Why wrong: Alerts detect issues but do not prevent them.
Implement a change management process with mandatory peer review.
Peer review catches misconfigurations before deployment.
Schedule weekly meetings to review changes.
Why wrong: Weekly reviews are too infrequent to prevent rapid changes.
Use a configuration management database (CMDB).
Why wrong: A CMDB tracks configurations but does not enforce review.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Implement a change management process with mandatory peer review.
Option B is correct because a change management process with mandatory peer review directly addresses the root cause: a configuration change was made without oversight. By requiring at least one additional engineer to review and approve changes before implementation, the process catches misconfigurations, policy violations, or unintended side effects before they reach production. This is a preventive control, not a detective or corrective one, and aligns with ITIL best practices for change management.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Add more monitoring alerts.
Why it's wrong here
Alerts detect issues but do not prevent them.
Implement a change management process with mandatory peer review.
Why this is correct
Peer review catches misconfigurations before deployment.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Schedule weekly meetings to review changes.
Why it's wrong here
Weekly reviews are too infrequent to prevent rapid changes.
Use a configuration management database (CMDB).
Why it's wrong here
A CMDB tracks configurations but does not enforce review.
Common exam traps
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between preventive controls (like peer review) and detective controls (like monitoring), leading candidates to mistakenly choose monitoring alerts because they seem proactive, when in fact they only detect failures after they happen.
Detailed technical explanation
In practice, a robust change management process often integrates with a ticketing system (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Service Management) that enforces a mandatory peer-review step via workflow automation. The peer reviewer typically validates the change against a standardized change template, checks for dependencies using the CMDB, and may run automated pre-validation scripts (e.g., syntax checks for Cisco IOS configs or Terraform plan outputs). Without this gate, even a single line change in a BGP route-map or an ACL can cause a widespread outage, as seen in real-world incidents like the 2017 AWS S3 outage triggered by a mistyped command.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
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FAQ
Managing service incidents — This question tests Managing service incidents — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Implement a change management process with mandatory peer review. — Option B is correct because a change management process with mandatory peer review directly addresses the root cause: a configuration change was made without oversight. By requiring at least one additional engineer to review and approve changes before implementation, the process catches misconfigurations, policy violations, or unintended side effects before they reach production. This is a preventive control, not a detective or corrective one, and aligns with ITIL best practices for change management.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
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