In ITIL 4, the continual improvement practice is focused on aligning the organization’s services, practices, and all elements of the service value system with changing business needs by identifying and making improvements on an ongoing basis.
ITIL 4 explicitly mentions that, to support continual improvement, organizations can use and build competencies in a variety of methods and techniques, such as:
SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)
Balanced scorecard
Lean, Six Sigma, and other improvement and measurement tools
The guidance explains that such techniques help organizations to evaluate current performance, identify improvement opportunities, and measure progress. This is directly linked to the continual improvement practice.
Why the other options are not correct:
A. Incident managementFocuses on managing incidents and restoring service quickly. While it may use some analysis tools, it is not the practice that explicitly promotes SWOT or balanced scorecards as general organizational competencies.
C. Service request managementManages user requests for services (like access, information, or standard changes). Its focus is on handling requests efficiently, not on strategic improvement techniques.
D. Change enablementEnsures that changes are properly assessed and authorized. It may use risk and impact assessment methods, but the explicit recommendation to develop skills in SWOT and balanced scorecard belongs to continual improvement.
Therefore, B. Continual improvement is the correct option.
References (ITIL 4 Foundation):
ITIL® Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition – Continual improvement practice (purpose, key activities, and methods)
ITIL® Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition – Mention of SWOT analysis, balanced scorecard, and other improvement techniques as supporting tools for continual improvement