Management

Explaining Business Analysis in ITIL v4

Overview

This article consolidates my learning and understanding of business analysis as per ITIL v4. I will also apply my own experiences to explain the business analysis process.

What is Business Analysis?

Business analysis involves analyzing a business or any other component to propose solutions for meeting those needs or solving business challenges. It is important to note that the term “business” analysis does not solely pertain to business entities.

Examples of Business Analysis Techniques

Examples of business analysis techniques include:

  • SWOT Analysis
  • User Stories

For specific methods, I defer to other sites as they are not the main focus here. Personally, I often use Customer Journey Maps, although it is not listed as an example here.

The Business Analysis Process

The business analysis process includes two main processes:

  • Designing and Maintaining Business Analysis Approaches
  • Identifying Business Analysis and Solutions

Designing and Maintaining Business Analysis Approaches

This process focuses on establishing a consistent and effective approach to business analysis by addressing the current and anticipated needs of the organization. It is executed as follows:

  • Analyzing the organization and requirements
  • Reviewing business analysis approach methodologies
  • Implementing the business analysis approach

In my organization, we rarely conduct analysis at the business layer level. Generally, this process involves analyzing specific requirements using certain methodologies.

Identifying Business Analysis and Solutions

This process emphasizes analyzing stakeholders’ needs and requirements. It includes identifying and proposing solutions to address the stakeholders’ needs and requirements. It is executed as follows:

  1. Collecting and analyzing information from stakeholders
  2. Defining solution options and identifying recommended solutions
  3. Providing support to the solution delivery team
  4. Evaluating and assessing the performance of the solution

Applying my own experiences to these activities, I understood them as follows:

For 1,2

  • Collecting information from stakeholders and conducting analysis.
  • Identifying the issues to be solved (why) from the analysis results and determining what solutions are available (what).

For 3

  • Considering how to solve the identified why and what with the product team.
  • Deciding on the resolution method and evaluation criteria to determine how success will be measured.

For 4

  • Regularly evaluating how well the solution meets the established criteria.
  • I recommend automating data collection and visualizing it with tools like Grafana for visibility.

Summary

This article explained business analysis based on my learning and experiences. Personally, I’ve understood that business analysis does not only target businesses and includes processes beyond analysis.

Reference