ITIL 4 MSF cheat sheet

Monitoring and event management detects changes of state; an event is any change of state that is significant for the management of a configuration item or IT service.

Event types: informational (no action required), warning (approaching a threshold), and exception (a service or component has failed or breached a defined limit).

Monitoring produces data; event management converts that data into meaningful events by applying correlation and filtering rules before routing to the right practice.

The service desk is the single point of contact between the service provider and users; it captures demand via the channels the organisation supports and owns incident and service request logging.

Incident management aims to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible while minimising adverse impact; it does not aim to find and remove the root cause.

Incident prioritisation derives from impact (degree of deviation from normal service) multiplied or matrixed with urgency (how long the deviation can be tolerated before business harm).

Major incidents are declared by defined criteria (for example, high business impact or multiple users affected) and trigger a separate escalation, communication and review path.

Service request management handles predefined, low-risk, user-initiated requests that are part of normal service delivery; they are fulfilled through a request catalogue, not treated as incidents.

Problem management has three phases: problem identification, problem control (analysis and workarounds), and error control (managing known errors through to permanent resolution).

A service request is a request from a user or user-authorised representative that initiates a service action agreed as a normal part of service delivery.

Service request models standardise recurring requests: they define the steps, the roles, the target times and the authorisation required, so fulfilment is repeatable and auditable.

The service catalogue is a structured view of services offered to users; the request catalogue is the subset of items users can request, and each item links to its fulfilment workflow.

Request fulfilment workflow: log, validate and authorise, record, approve if required, fulfil, and close with user confirmation.

The service desk practice includes incident and service request handling, user communication, and acting as the entry point for other practices such as change enablement and problem management.

Service desks are structured as local, centralised, virtual (follow-the-sun) or self-service; the choice trades coverage and cost against local knowledge and language support.

Fulfilment performance is measured with lead time, percentage fulfilled within target, first-time-right rate, and user satisfaction with the request experience.

Requests requiring a change (for example, non-standard access or new hardware) must pass through change enablement before fulfilment; standard pre-authorised changes can be pre-approved.

Knowledge management supports fulfilment by making known workarounds, request instructions and self-help articles available at the point of contact.