The 'Shift Left' approach focuses on moving support activities closer to the customer and earlier in the service lifecycle. This is achieved through automation, self-service, and empowering front-line staff. Activities like auto-detection of potential issues (proactive prevention), auto-correction, and self-service diagnosis are core features of Shift Left as they resolve or prevent issues at the earliest possible point. Conversely, automatically referring an incident to second-line support is an escalation. This action moves the responsibility further away from the customer and the front line, which is the opposite of the Shift Left principle.

A. Auto-correction of operational issues after they have occurred: This is a feature of Shift Left, as it uses automation to resolve issues instantly without escalating to human support teams.

B. Auto-detection of potential operational issues before they occur: This is a key aspect of Shift Left, moving from reactive support to proactive prevention, which is the earliest possible stage in the incident lifecycle.

D. Self service incident diagnosis: This is a quintessential example of Shift Left, empowering the end-user (Tier 0 support) to diagnose and often resolve their own issues, reducing reliance on the service desk.

1. VeriSM™: A service management approach for the digital age. (2018). Van Haren Publishing.

Section 4.4.1, 'Shift Left': This section defines Shift Left as "the practice of moving work closer to its source." It explicitly provides examples such as moving activities from a service desk to a self-service portal for the consumer. The principle is to resolve issues at the lowest, most efficient level possible. Escalation to a higher tier like second-line support is contrary to this principle.

2. EXIN. (2018). Preparation Guide EXIN VERISME™ Foundation.

Section 3.3, 'Progressive practices': The guide explains that Shift Left aims to handle tickets faster and more cheaply by moving resolution to a lower-cost part of the organization, such as the service desk or directly to the user via self-service. Automating escalation to a more specialized (and expensive) team like second-line support contradicts this core objective of efficiency and cost-saving.