Here’s a story that might sound familiar. You need a new household appliance – perhaps a washing machine. A friend recommends a particular make and model, or there’s a good offer online. It might be top of the range, but it looks the part, and you don’t want to spend long researching your options, so you buy it.
You install it and are pleased that you have 20 different programs available. It works well. But after a year, you realise you only ever use one or two of those programmes and don’t really see the point of the other 18. Or your washing doesn’t always come out as well as you’d hoped, because selecting the right programme to use in various instances is complicated and you never had the time to figure it out.
If only you’d made a bit more effort to do your research, you could have saved yourself a lot of money and bother in the long run…
And the same principle is true when it comes to installing new ITSM systems and processes. Over the years, we’ve seen far too many organisations choose the wrong option for their needs, or fail to obtain enough value from the system they select because they’re not using it to its full potential.
That’s why we believe business analysis is an essential early step.
Many organisations might find this frustrating, as they may think it slows them down or adds extra cost. However, in our experience, we find that we always save them time and unnecessary costs in the long run by carefully analysing their requirements, and how the right new system – applied in the right way – can add value to the business.
What is business analysis, and how does it add value?
Fundamentally, business analysis is all about business needs. So, for us, it’s about working with our customers to understand their organisation, where it wants to go and how it needs to get there.
We believe it’s crucial that our business analysts should not be technologists – although, of course, they do have a good understanding of the technology and what it can deliver, but not being tech experts helps them to remain solution agnostic and to focus on the business and its requirements, rather than what a particular system can and can’t do – as the latter should come later in the process once the requirements are clear.
An example might be of a customer coming to us and asking for help with streamlining an internal process.
Our first step will be to work with them to understand what they mean by ‘streamline’ and what, precisely, they want to achieve. We will document those requirements, and only then hand over to our developers to work out the technical solution.
Another area where business analysis delivers added value is when a customer wants or needs to migrate to a new ITSM system. For example, if you’re a Cherwell user, this will be a necessity because its owner, Ivanti, will discontinue the platform in 2026.
Based on our experience, many customers tend to only use a small percentage of the functionality of their system (rather like that washing machine). That will often be because selection and implementation are done rapidly and they don’t have the time or expertise to figure out how to make full use of it.
What’s more, it’s likely they won’t have made their purchase decision based on a process of clearly defining their requirements – resulting in overpaying, having a solution that doesn’t do what they need it to, or not having the internal technical expertise to squeeze maximum value from the system.
However, when we work with a customer, after doing a full analysis of their requirements, we use our depth of experience and understanding of the market to make a rapid recommendation of the best tool or tools available to suit their needs. That can not only potentially save you money, but also time – as you won’t need to go through a lengthy procurement process where you get locked into a seemingly endless cycle of sales calls and demos with multiple vendors.
The risks of jumping to a solution
It’s also worth being aware of the impact of failing to undertake proper business analysis and jumping directly to a technical solution.
If requirements are not fully and clearly defined at the start, the biggest risk – perhaps obviously – is not ending up with what you actually need. And it goes without saying what the consequences of that can be, especially if a lot of time and budget has been devoted to the new system or process.
It can also create big problems when it comes to testing. But if you have a clear set of requirements, you can easily test your solution against them. You can methodically work through the steps we’ll have laid out, then rapidly identify any issues – which, in turn, can be quickly rectified.
And, even better, the documents created for testing, which will be based on use cases, can also be repurposed as training documents.
Good testing and training processes can also lead to higher levels of user acceptance within the organisation, particularly among those who are most affected by a new process or system. If it really meets business requirements, users will be delighted and will forgive all manner of disruption and change. But if it fails to live up to expectations, things can quickly spiral downhill – and your chances of winning them over again will rapidly diminish.
In fact, we can guarantee that if you don’t do your business analysis properly at the beginning, within a few years, you’ll run a high risk of ditching your new system and starting again because everyone will be so against it and will fail to use it properly. We can help you avoid this kind of vicious circle. To find out more about how we undertake effective business analysis to support your ITSM needs, get in touch for a no-strings conversation now.
