ITIL4F ITIL Guiding Principles Practice Question
An IT department is redesigning its change management process. The current process has many approval steps causing delays. According to the guiding principle 'Keep it simple and practical', what should they do?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse 'automation' with 'simplification,' assuming that automating all approvals (Option D) is inherently good, but ITIL4F stresses that automation should only be applied to value-adding steps, not to all steps indiscriminately.
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
✓
Remove steps that do not add value
The guiding principle 'Keep it simple and practical' emphasizes eliminating unnecessary complexity. In change management, approval steps that do not add value (e.g., redundant sign-offs for low-risk changes) cause delays without improving quality. By removing such steps, the process becomes more efficient while still maintaining appropriate controls.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Outsource the process to a vendor
Why it's wrong here
Outsourcing a process shifts operational responsibility but rarely simplifies the underlying process itself from an organizational perspective. It introduces new layers of complexity, including vendor management, contract negotiation, service level agreement (SLA) monitoring, and integration challenges between internal systems and the vendor's operations. This approach often adds governance overhead rather than streamlining the core activities of change management.
- ✗
Add more approval steps to ensure quality
Why it's wrong here
Adding more approval steps typically increases process complexity, introduces bottlenecks, and extends lead times without a guaranteed improvement in quality. Each additional step requires resources and time, potentially leading to bureaucratic inertia and frustrating stakeholders. This approach contradicts the ITIL 4 Guiding Principle of "Keep it simple and practical," as it prioritizes control over efficiency and value delivery.
- ✓
Remove steps that do not add value
Why this is correct
This action directly aligns with the ITIL 4 Guiding Principles of "Focus on value" and "Keep it simple and practical." By systematically identifying and eliminating redundant, unnecessary, or non-value-adding activities within the change management process, an organization can significantly streamline workflows, reduce cycle times, and optimize resource utilization. This simplification enhances efficiency, improves responsiveness, and ensures that every remaining step contributes directly to desired outcomes.
- ✗
Automate all approvals regardless of value
Why it's wrong here
Automating approvals without first optimizing and simplifying the underlying process can be detrimental. Blind automation risks embedding existing inefficiencies or even accelerating errors within the system, making a flawed process run faster but not better. ITIL emphasizes that automation should support well-designed, value-adding processes, not merely digitize every existing step, especially those that contribute no discernible value.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ITIL4F practice question is part of Courseiva's free PeopleCert certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the ITIL4F exam.