Download - 0000 Business Analysis Template Gap Analysis v006

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Gap Analysis

Type the Programme Name below if applicable. Delete the line if not required.

<Programme Name>

Follow these steps to set Document Properties.

Word 2003

Open File/Properties/Summary. In the Title field enter the Document Name.

In the Subject field enter the Project Name. In the Author field enter Your Name. Click OK and save the document.

Word 2007

Click MS Office Button/Prepare/Properties. In the Title field enter the Document Name.

In the Subject field enter the Project Name. In the Author field enter Your Name. Save the document.

Update Fields

You must now update these fields in the document. Click on a field and then the F9 key.

Ensure you update fields on the cover page and headers in all sections of your document.

<Set Project Name in Document Properties>

Document Identification

File name: document.doc

Version:

Information Technology Services

<Set Project Name in Document Properties> Gap Analysis

Document Identification

Status:

Date:

Prepared by:

Contributors:

The status field should indicate whether the document is Draft or Approved.

Contributors are stakeholders that have contributed directly to the contents of this document.

Responsible Authorities

Project Sponsor:

Project Manager:

Senior User:

Senior Supplier

Service Owner

System Owner

Add or delete Authorities as required.

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StakeholdersThe Stakeholders section is used to capture the details of any stakeholder who has contributed to the gap analysis presented in this document. All contributors listed here should also appear in the project’s Stakeholder Analysis spreadsheet. The initials of each stakeholder will appear besides the statements that they have been the source of.

The Position is sometimes referred to as title. Examples of this are “Director, Project Services, ITS” and “Associate Dean, MDHS”. You should provide each contributor’s phone number in the contact details section. You may also provide their email address if you wish.

An appendix has also been provided that can be used to capture the meetings you have had with the contributors.

The following stakeholders have contributed to this Gap Analysis. The full list of stakeholders is in the Stakeholder Analysis spreadsheet for this project.

Name Position Contact Details Initials

Reviewers

Name Position Contact Details Date

ApprovalsThe Approvals section is used to capture the details of those stakeholders who are responsible for approving the contents of this document. Their details should be added here during the early draft stages of the document. The Approved checkbox should be checked and the date entered only when an approval has been provided by the stakeholder in the form of an email or an actual signature.

Checking the Approved checkbox is most easily achieved by double-clicking the box to open the Properties dialog and changing the Default value option to Checked. It is recommended to have an email approval stored within the project repository.

Name Position Approved Date

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Document purposeGap Analysis is a comparison of the current state and desired future state of an organisation in order to identify differences that need to be addressed.

- A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge. IIBA.version 2.0

Any reference to the use of a specific technology or interface design elements is entirely inappropriate in a gap analysis document.

This document captures the difference between the current state and desired state of a system. This Gap Analysis will drive the targets of the relevant project. It is designed to fulfil several purposes:

As a means to identify the gaps in the current state

As a means to help define the problem that is to be solved by the project

As a means to help define the desired future state of the project.

This document is solution independent. It is intended to be a statement of the difference between two states, not how the target future state will be achieved.

Table of contents

1 Introduction............................................................................................................51.1 Audience................................................................................................................................. 5

1.2 References.............................................................................................................................. 5

2 Gap analysis overview..........................................................................................62.1 Document scope...................................................................................................................... 6

2.2 Assumptions............................................................................................................................ 6

2.3 Recommendation.................................................................................................................... 6

3 Gap analysis...........................................................................................................73.1 Identified gaps......................................................................................................................... 7

4 <System/process> – current state.......................................................................94.1 Overview................................................................................................................................. 9

5 System/process> – target future state...............................................................105.1 Overview............................................................................................................................... 10

6 Conclusion...........................................................................................................11

7 Appendices..........................................................................................................127.1 Glossary................................................................................................................................ 12

7.2 Gap analysis elicitation record...............................................................................................12

8 Document control................................................................................................13

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1 IntroductionYou should provide here a brief overview of the project and the purpose for the Gap Analysis. This should be no more than two paragraphs long and present in as few words as possible the background, aims of the project and the purpose for Gap analysis. This section must reflect the content in the Concept Proposal/Project Brief / Business Case (depending on which stage the Gap Analysis is at).

While this may seem needlessly repetitive, keep in mind that the audience may not have seen the preceding project documents for months if at all.

1.1 Audience

You are free to leave the text below as is or alter it according to your needs.

The typical audience for a Gap Analysis document such as this is:

Project Sponsor

The project sponsor could use this as a supplementary information document ideally prior to the project mandate

Business Subject Matter Experts

These people are key contributors to the contents of this document and will be asked to review and validate that what has been captured accurately represents the Gap Analysis.

Project Manager

The project manager could use this document as a basis for the project mandate.

Business Analysts

Business analysts may use this document as a basis for gap analysis gathering, baseline for feasibility studies and for requirements gathering purposes.

Other ITS Staff

Other staff may refer to this document to help them improve their understanding of the project and how it may relate to work they are undertaking.

1.2 References

Some of the following documents types may be available:

Project Initiation Document

Feasibility Study

Project Brief

Stakeholder Analysis

If these documents have been created for your project, they should be listed in this section. It is important to list all relevant documents here so add as many entries as needed. Other documents such as meeting minutes and those created by external parties may also be referenced.

The reference structure provided below is a guide only. Include as much information as makes sense for each document. We generally do not include the location of documents as these are typically not very stable and are often inaccessible to the audience anyway.

1. <document name>, <author>, <publisher>, <version>, <year>

2. <document name>, <author>, <publisher>, <version>, <year>

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2 Gap analysis overview

2.1 Document scope

This section explicitly states which types of information are included and excluded from this document.

The following statements should apply to most projects. Any desired changes should be discussed with the BA manager.

The scope of this document includes:

Description of current processes or systems being analysed

Description of the target process or system

Breakdown of the gaps between the current and target process or system

Conclusion and recommendation

Specifically excluded from the scope of this document are:

Requirements/ Solutions

Implications of solution or option(s)

Costs

Timeframes

Risks

Plans

Wish-list items not related to gaps

Requirements not related to gaps.

2.2 Assumptions

Clearly document any assumptions that have been made that are important for understanding the context of this gap analysis. Each assumption should be presented in only enough detail to allow the non-technical reader to understand the significance of the assumption.

During the course of a project, it is common for assumptions to be clarified and removed or transformed into dependencies or constraints. If any of the listed assumptions prove to be invalid, it could be expected that there will be a substantive impact upon the project scope, the business requirements and the solution design.

For e.g.The project is expected to deliver a solution by Dec 2011

The following assumptions have been made when formulating this gap analysis:

2.3 Recommendation

This section should make a recommendation as to which gaps need to be fixed based upon those identified gaps that are the most important business issues for the University.

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3 Gap analysisList the gaps that are evident between the current state and the target state as described above.

The populated rows of the table below show a variety of examples.

Table column definitions

Identified Gap Area - Name of the area where the gap exists

Current State - Description of the current state

Future State - Description of the future state

Description of Gap - A detailed description of how the current system does not meet the Target

How long has it existed? - A short description of the length of time the Gap is known to have existed

Benefits - Description of benefits of the target future state.

3.1 Identified gaps

No. Identified Gap Area Priority to Close Gap1

Current State Target Future State Description of Gap How long has Gap existed?

Benefits of Closing Gap

1 Application Access H The application provides access to full time professional and academic staff only.

The ITS CIO has mandated that contractors and casual staff to be able to access the application

Contractors and casual staff cannot access the application.

Inability to access the application has resulted in poor reach out to the casual audience of the University.

Since the application was released 24 months ago.

Extension of the service to contractors and casual staff.

1 Where H=High, M=Medium and L=Low

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No. Identified Gap Area Priority to Close Gap

Current State Target Future State Description of Gap How long has Gap existed?

Benefits of Closing Gap

2 Application Accessibility

H The application is accessible only from within the UoM wired campus network

The ITS policy document “ITS Policy” has indicated that ITS applications should be accessible from all places ITS staff are able to work including wireless and remote access locations

The application cannot be accessed via the wireless network or via the remote network access service for staff.

Since the application was released 24 months ago.

Increased accessibility for staff when using the wireless network.

3 Application Response M The application often takes over 45 seconds to return a result every time a form is submitted.

Unless technological constraints cannot be overcome, users would be happy with a sub-15 second response time.

Considering the number of submissions required to be made daily by application operators, a regular 45 second response is seen as unacceptable by the users.

Since the application servers were relocated in the data centre 3 months ago.

Increased productivity and reduced frustration for users of the application.

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4 <System/process> – current stateChange the above heading to describe if the gap analysis is being performed on a process or a system.

4.1 Overview

Provide a brief overview of the process / system .If the current process includes sub- processes structure your content to the detail that is required for this section. A diagram may be appropriate here (especially for processes).

For example:

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5 System/process> – target future stateChange the above heading to describe if the gap analysis is being performed on a process or a system.

5.1 Overview

Briefly describe the first target system or process. List the standards, service or performance levels that are required/desired in a new process or system. These should be the RELEVANT standards to which the analysis will find gaps.

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6 ConclusionThis section should summarise the gaps and help to define the problem statement. Gaps could be grouped into levels of importance, areas of technology, or operational areas of responsibility according to the most relevant issues for this problem.

The following conclusion has been made based on the above gap analysis:

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7 AppendicesAdd any appendices that are needed to support the gap analysis. Some standard tables are provided which you may delete if they are not appropriate for your project but we encourage you to make us of them.

Examples:

Bibliography

Extracts of University policies.

7.1 Glossary

It is common practice to provide a glossary of relevant terms. If you are debating on whether you should include a term in this table, it is better to err on the safe side and include it. Do not assume that the audience of this document has the same background knowledge that you do.

You may include words and acronyms in the Term column. Please keep the table sorted alphabetically on the Term column. You can use the Sort command within the Table menu to do this.

Term Definition

7.2 Gap analysis elicitation record

The gap analyses presented in this document were gathered during a number of meetings and discussions with the various contributors. The table below lists the meetings and discussions that took place along with the dates and attendees.

It would be normal for all of the attendees appearing in this table to also be listed (once) in the Contributors table at the start of the document. There may be some exceptions to this rule if there were attendees at meetings who were not significant providers of gap analysis. You should use the full name of the attendees in this table in preference to their initials.

Please ensure that a record of these meetings also appears in your project’s Stakeholder Analysis spreadsheet.

Date Meeting Title / Topics Discussed Attendees

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8 Document control

Approvals

Version No. Approval Date Name Title Signature/Email ref

Review history

Version No. Review Date Name Title

Version history

Version No. Version Date Summary of Changes Prepared by:

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Template controlDelete the template control page prior to using/publishing your document.

Template Name Location

Gap Analysis ITS>Projects>Project Toolbox>Templates, Guides and Tools

Template approvals

Version No. Approval Date Name Title Signature/Email ref

007 31 Jan 2011 Trevor Lynn Assistant PMO Manager 31 Jan 2010 T. Lynn

Template review history

Version No. Review Date Name Title

007 28 Jan 2011 Deepa Ponnappan BA Manager

Template version history

Version No. Version Date Summary of Changes Prepared by

001 25 Oct 2010 First Draft Cameron Shepherdley

001 1-Nov-2010 First review of the template Deepa Ponnappan

002 8 Nov 2010 Aligned the template and document version numbers and file names with the new standard.Copied in the RemoveGuidelinesText macro so that it also deletes this Template Control page.Copied in standard BA template styles.

Cameron Shepherdley

003 29-Oct-2010 Review by Deepa and preliminary feedback from SBAs. Sections re-ordered.

Deepa Ponnappan, Cameron Shepherdley

004 10-Nov-2010 Review by SBAs Cameron Shepherdley

005 20-Jan-2011 Reviewed by C&C Practice Lead Deepa Ponnappan

006 27 Jan 2011 Document styles update. Tamara Wishart

007 28 Jan 2011 Document styles review Deepa Ponnappan

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