Business Analysis: How to Perform Gap Analysis and Create Gap Do...

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Business Analysis
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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How to Perform Gap Analysis and Create Gap

Documents
Gap Analysis- Professional Way

Gap analysis is the technique to identify the area of improvement in any

process ranging from Business to technology. The areas of improvement
doesnt necessarily mean any new enhancement, it is either about finding a
gap between what is expected and what is really done. Gap analysis is not a
tool for IT or Engineering but it can also be used to implement any business
processes or strategies that are implicit to be improving soon.

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2012 (6)
March (6)
Using BRTM/RTM for
Risk Mitigation
How to create a BRTM
and RTM?
Traceability Matrix can
be bidirectional
What are the differences
between BRTM and
RTM?
Traceability in a
Professional WayTraceability M...
How to Perform Gap
Analysis and Create
Gap Documen...

Gap analysis doesnt have to have any specific template or any standard
model however, any artifact which reflects the differences between what is
now and what it should really be in an organized way. This gap analysis
technique is being used by almost all the businesses without knowing what
this approach is really called. The beauty of Strategically Gap analysis is that
it is not a certificate or any affiliate or compliance document rather is it a
traceability strategy to improve the process with a perfect monitoring system.
Now, as we now understand what is gap analysis, what is left to understand is
where really this analysis comes into play during Business Analysis. Well,
there is no distinct time when this should be done but the good thing is that
we can work on gap analysis as soon as we have two things to compare
against. The first thing is the current state and the next thing is the future or
expected state of the improvement. Take a situation when a Business Analyst
work as an Enterprise BA and he is working on a Project plan. Now, as the
project plan gets extended into high level requirement document then this a
perfect time when you will have both current state and the future state. An
Enterprise BA will then compare that Project Plan with the Higher Level
requirements, which is also called gap analysis and try to find out what are
the gaps that BA missed to include in the requirements. This is a chance for
all Business Analysts to protect their responsibility and they themselves; just
what they need to do is to create GAP Documents proactively. Not to mention
that 75% projects fail due to wrong or missing requirements. No one can
really take that responsibility to mislead any project.
In short, Gap analysis is an analytical and strategical process to identify the
missing details or gaps in a document or process when we have both current
and future state identified. It doesnt have to be only the project documents
for Gap Analysis nor it only have to be done by Business Analyst. Anyone who
wants to proactively monitor and improve the process/system/policies or even
the corporate strategies and cultures can use this ultimate technique to keep
you into right track.
Efficient Way of Performing Gap Analysis:

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With the advancement in the technology, especially with Information

Technology, companies now start looking outside of their confined traditional
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of product and culture. Gap analysis is a tool for those managers and CEOs
who want to stay on the top of success. If a gap analysis is done only one
time then it makes very easier to monitor any new changes or improvements.
Gap analysis is an In-process document and it is never considered a complete
document until the whole project is either completed or terminated.
Lets create a basic yet effective Gap Document for our Gap Analysis. We will
attempt to identify the Gap between Current and Future State (assuming
current and future states are both known to us). Open an excel file and start
creating columns as steps below:
1.

Identify the Current State or As-Is process/state: Name the first

column as Current State and start listing all the current state
functionalities or processes or anything that you want to perform gap
analysis on.

2.

Identify the future state or To-Be process/State: Name the Second

Column as Future State and start listing the future states
corresponding to Current states. If there is no future state then
mention N/A in the corresponding row. In care we do not know the
name of future sate or simply the future state is unknown to us then
mention Unknown.
Note- Lets take an example as I am creating a Business Requirement
Document and I want to make sure that I listed out all the
requirements. The best way to identify the missing requirement is by
performing a quick gap analysis but how? Now after completing above
two steps you can create a third column as Identified as
Requirement. If you identified that enhancement in functionality as a
requirement then mention YES in the corresponding row if not then
say NO and this NO is the problem now. It is a GAP for this
situation.

3.

Gap Exists? The third column can be named as Gap Exists? When
current state and future state doesnt perfectly match up then Gap
Exists= Yes. In our example, when future state is unknown or N/A
for us then that means there is a gap.

4. Fourth Column as Gap Description: Use the fourth column to describe

the Gap in detail. For the Gap which exits as Unknown, we can
describe it as this gap exists due to unknown future state of
corresponding current state. This gap should be resolved after the
identification of future state is completed. You can even provide the
Name of contact person and gap resolution strategies here in this
column.
th

th

th

5. Fifth Column- Gap Resolution: Column 5 , 6 and 7 are dedicated

to Gap Resolution. As we already found Gaps, now we need to resolve
them. In this column mention the detail how the Gap was resolved.
Provide all the information as possible.
6.

Column Six- Gap Resolved By: It is always good to mention the

source in documents. Here in this column the name of person or
source who resolved the Gap.

7. Column Seven- Gap Resolved Date: Mention the date when the Gap
was resolved.
8.

Column Eight Comments/Attachments: Mention additional detail

which you missed to include before.

There columns are not the standards. You can use it whichever way you want
to, there are no standards or Gap Analysis Columns. These columns are used

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here because they are the best fields I could find to compare the Current and
Future State, a simple illustration. You can add other columns like:
Dependencies, Risk, Priority and so one as needed by your situation.
Flow Diagram of Basic Gap Analysis (stated above) should look like as image
below:

Some Quick Tips on Gap Analysis:

1. Color coding: Use color Red as the Gap Exists =Yes and Green for
No. It will make it easier to read, understand or to demonstrate it to
another person.
2.

Use Excel file It is not limited to excel file, but excel is very effective
tool for creating tables and comparing each cell.

3. Use a Tab as Version/History: When you completed first gap analysis

give it a version 1.0 and for next analysis version it as 1.1 or 2.0.
Provide Date and Description of each version.
4.

Use a Tab Supporting Documents: Provide links or attachments in

this tab with description of all the documents or sources that were
used to create this gap document.

Gap Analysis is a general tool to monitor higher level functionality, especially

used by Business Team; however, it has some limitations. One known
limitation worth mentioning here is that it is nearly impossible to monitor a
project which has thousands of small improvements and also when these
improvements are broken down into many phases. In other words, we can
only use a Gap analysis in Higher Level or for small part of a huge project.
Mostly, gap analysis is done in a different way and named differently when it
has to deal with system level details. Most of the times, we call it Traceability
Matrix or Mapping Documents. These documents use some concepts of Gap
Analysis but they are not considered as an Authentic Gap Documents. They
are system level Docs or reference docs for system specs. I will make sure to
post another blog on Traceability Matrix and Mapping Documents.
Feel free to add comments and suggestions!
SGR, Business Analyst/ Project Manager
www.sentiencetms.com

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Posted by Shawn Chhetri at 9:08 AM

Recommend this on Google

3 comments:
nagendra March 19, 2013 at 2:58 AM
Please help me out with RTM and other Mapping Docs
Reply

Abdulhamid Elamami April 5, 2013 at 3:08 AM

thank you it's very useful information
Reply

Innovation April 25, 2013 at 1:54 AM

Thanks, very useful. Do you have any implemented example?
Reply
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