問46
頻出度★★★
企業がサービスデスクを導入するメリットに関する記述として, 適切なものはどれか。
平成23年度 特別試験 ITパスポート試験 問46
マネジメント系サービスマネジメント › サービスマネジメントシステム
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 46
Incorrectア
Shortening the time until a new version of software is released belongs to the area handled by release management (release and deployment management). Release management is the process of migrating and deploying changed software or hardware into the production environment in a planned way, and of raising the efficiency and reliability of release work by standardizing those procedures. A service desk is a contact-point function that receives and handles inquiries from users; it is not in charge of the work of distributing developed software to the production environment itself. Setting up a contact point does not causally shorten the lead time up to a release, so this choice is wrong.
Incorrectイ
Eliminating the use of unauthorized software is achieved through software asset management, which grasps and manages the licences and installation status of the software an organization owns and uses; through configuration management, which keeps the configuration information of IT assets accurate; and through thorough observance of the security policy that backs them up. Concretely, control measures such as taking inventory of installed software with an asset management tool and restricting installations are required. A service desk may notice signs of unauthorized software use among the inquiries it receives and report them to the department concerned, but it is not itself a control measure that eliminates such use, so this cannot be called a direct benefit of introducing one.
Incorrectウ
The reduction of service interruptions and rollback work caused by failed system changes is an effect of change management. Change management is the process of receiving change requests, assessing their scope of impact and risk in advance, carrying out only approved changes, and preparing rollback procedures beforehand in case of failure, which reduces the failures caused by changes. A service desk can serve as the contact point that receives change requests and passes them on to change management, but it does not take on the role of examining and approving whether the content of a change is sound in order to prevent failure, so this choice is wrong.
- エ
正解 The correct answer is エ. A service desk is a contact-point function that receives in one place the inquiries, failure reports, and change or service requests coming from the users of a system or service. Its greatest feature is that it becomes the single point of contact (SPOC) for users. When the contact point is not unified, users have to judge for themselves which department a problem should be reported to, they get passed around from one place to another, and it takes a long time before an answer comes back. Once a service desk is introduced, users know that they can simply contact it first, so both the trouble of being transferred and the waiting time decrease. On the service desk side, the inquiries it receives are recorded as incidents, priorities are decided from the impact and the urgency, and the order of handling is managed. Because the staff can refer to a knowledge base that accumulates past handling records, known error information, and FAQs, common inquiries can be answered on the spot (first-line resolution), and only specialized matters that they cannot solve themselves are quickly handed over to the responsible department or to specialist engineers (escalation). Through this whole mechanism of recording, prioritizing, first-line resolution, and escalation, the time from inquiry to answer is shortened, users do not have to stop their work, and their satisfaction improves. Therefore, the appropriate benefit of introducing a service desk is エ, “Prompt responses to inquiries.”
ここがポイント
- Definition of the service desk and the benefits of introducing it — a service desk is the single point of contact (SPOC) that receives inquiries, failure reports, and requests from users. It records inquiries as incidents, assigns priorities, and then either resolves them at the first line using a knowledge base or escalates them to a specialist department. As a result, answers to inquiries become fast and user satisfaction improves.
- Division of roles with the other service management processes — release management makes release work more efficient, configuration management and software asset management control IT assets and unauthorized software use, and change management suppresses the service interruptions and rollbacks caused by failed changes. What is tested here is exactly that distinction: a service desk is a contact-point function that works together with these processes, not one that takes over their roles.
用語