RCV: Request Fulfilment vs Incident Management

I just failed the ITIL RCV exam with 65/100, one of the question that I got 0 point is about request fulfillment and incident management. I don't think it's a right thing to type the whole question/answer here, however one of the key thing about that question is that:

when a phone call/email has been arrived to the service desk, is request fulfillment process immediately started, and THEN the request will be categorized and re-routed to incident management if needed (i.e. first started the request fulfillment process, then re-routed to incident management)?
OR it is the service desk who will identify the request, then route the request to either request fulfillment or incident management (i.e. service desk will determine if it is process of request fulfillment or incident management will start)?

(a) or (b)? I picked (a), but I got 0 point on that question. But why? I Google'd a bit and tried to figure out the right answer, but I still don't know why I was wrong. Can anyone explain or provide reference please? P.S. for those who are wondering, although the syllabus did say that request fulfillment v.s. incident management is in the exam scope, however the official RCV handbook does NOT have any content to explain about the difference between the two, it only stated it's depending on different organizations blah blah blah.

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Claire Agutter

Hi mikelau13

That's an interesting question. If you go back to the book and take a look at the incident management and request fulfilment process flows, they both have a similar step at the start of the process.

Incident management says 'is this really an incident?' - if not, direct it to request fulfilment
Request fulfilment says 'is this really a request?' - if not, direct it to incident management

In a typical service desk, this is a decision the service desk staff should have the skills to make. They will listen to the description from the caller, and route the call to the appropriate process - either incident management or request fulfilment.

If measurement of the service desk showed that a high percentage of contacts were being directed to the wrong process, that would highlight a training requirement for the service desk staff.

Good luck with the re-take,

Claire

mikelau13

Thx Claire for the clarification!

So the answer is: Service desk will identify the request to route to either RF or IM; although later the request can still be re-routed to another process if appropriate.

Your information is very important for me, because the RCV handbook was confusing, it only has content about Request Fulfillment, so it only describes the process from the view point of RF ...