Gap Analysis simplified

Gap Analysis made simple

A Gap Analysis is often for the purpose of a Business Case. It is the study of a process or state within an organisation that you want to identify issues with, in order to make improvement.  The analysis starts with identifying the current state and the future state, which then makes obvious the areas where the issues lie – the gaps.

SWOT is the traditional method of state analysis, however Gap Analysis offers a more direct and conceptual view to the operational issue – it is therefore more flexible. The best way to record the analysis, is through an Excel spreadsheet.

Current state (As is)

Analysis of the elements within the current state, using workshops or interviews. This can be a wide perspective (whole business) or drilled down (a particular HR procedure). It is key to be specific and factual, so as to act as a good tool to present weaknesses.

For tips on writing a Business Case: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_62.htm

Future state (To be)

This is the state in which you visualize the business or process to be at in the future. It can be very specific or generic in what you want to eventually achieve.

You should detail these idealized attributes against the corresponding the attributes of the current state.

Some great template examples to get you started: https://www.sampletemplates.com/business-templates/gap-analysis-template.html

Gap issues

Achieving the above then makes it easier to see the areas for improvement - the Gaps. Identify whether a gap exists, then detail all the elements which make up the gap state, keeping it consistent to the current and future state elements identified.

Factors responsible for the gap

This is then where you detail the factors, which are responsible or the gap elements – taking a deeper look into why they are there. This list has to be as specific and relevant as possible.

Remedies/Action plan

Finally, you list the all the remedies to these factors, making sure they are consistent to the current and ideal future state. They must be action orientated and can be as detailed as you like them to be.

Gap analysis is a very effective tool for organizations going through change and is particularly important for new businesses. It offers insight for managing and allocating resources efficiently.


Helen Barnshaw
Digital PM & Business Analyst

The Business Benefits of Lessons Learned

The purpose of lessons learned is to gather together any insights to use on future projects, to effectively eradicate poor practices and create a platform to integrate better practices. This can be massively beneficial to a business when used to improve operational processes.

The warning signs

There are many reasons a project can have failed, but learning from it can be a great lesson to ensure strength for future projects. Tracking is important, as this can help you to recognize issues before they become a disaster.

• If a project is running over budget by around 30%, this is not a good sign, and can be hard to correct further on down the lifecycle.
• The customer has contacted the CEO for various reasons and critical points within the project.
• The customer is talking about pulling funding from the agreement. Putting projects on hold often isn’t the best solution, as you will have wasted funding during this time if the customer decided to pull out.

Documenting Lessons Learned

Documenting lessons learned is one of the biggest responsibilities a Project Manager has during or after a project. The ability to learn and keep improving future projects is vital for better success rates. Improvement isn’t just for the business environment; it can be used in any area of life in general, and is a state of mind for someone interested in the holistic side to life.

Lessons Learned should not just focus on mistakes but also praise the successes on a project.

The best time to capture these is in real time, just as they’ve happened. This avoids forgetting about them and knowledge being lost. An Agile Scrum environment can be beneficial for stand-up meetings, which include the Lessons Learned theme. Stand-ups are intended to be focused on the main issues and solutions on projects running at that time. Logging lessons learned after these, can be a great way to log details before they’re forgotten. Then opening up the question to the rest of the project team after, to gain further insights from other areas of the project.

Lessons Learned logs should then be clearly published for all team members and business members to access.

How this can improve project processes

Lessons learned are key to project deliverables, budgets, and customer complete satisfaction. There is a financial saving to be made in organizations, from not repeating mistakes. It could therefore be beneficial to businesses to incorporate Lessons Learned as a permanent and evolving tool within operational procedures.

Recording problems and solutions within an accessible database, categorizing key attributes for ease of search-ability, communicate to all projects teams when this information is updated, encourage use of database through free and informal access to the pool of knowledge, regularly review the data, and continually improve processes to eradicate the problems from reoccurring and implement the successful practices.

However you decide to approach and implement Lessons Learned, they provide a great way to save projects and provide real-time proof of required improvements for business processes, which could be massively cost-beneficial for a business.

To get you started, a free Lessons Learned template:

https://www.4shared.com/office/KiW8ux3ice/Lessons_Learned_Log_Template.html

  

Helen Barnshaw

Project Manager & Business Analyst

Documenting tools for the whole project lifecycle

I have read about and worked with many free Business Analysis and Project Management tools over the past few years and there are always new and more improved models being released everyday.

I’m continuously intrigued and excited by new emerging products that have evolved to help simplify the project process for everyone on a project. So I have compiled a typical list of the tools, which I have found the most useful on recent projects. Some products I'm just getting to grips with but so far I've found them really helpful and timesaving when it comes to modeling and notation.

I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

• Business Case: (Document Template)
• Business process: BPM (Document Template) Create your own at https://www.lucidchart.com
• User Story - (Document Template)
• Agile requirements: Use Case (Document Template) Create your own at https://www.lucidchart.com . Wire Framing, create your own at http://quirktools.com
• Project planning: Gantt chart, create your own at  https://app.smartsheet.com
• Scrum, QA Testing: Issue Tracking, create your own at https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira (plan, track, & release)

Additionally, I have recently stumbled upon TFS (Team Foundation Server) for software projects. It is a Microsoft product, and although I’ve not yet used it, I have read great reviews about it. It seems to be the best answer for a tool, which covers the full application lifecycle; requirements, build, testing, release management platform. It also has a source code manager built in.

Check it out: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/tfs-overview-vs.aspx

Starting out in Agile and tailoring it with your current environment

How is Agile different from traditional SDLCs? Agile allows for a more flexible framework on requirements gathering, to avoid rushed changes at later launch/release phases of the project. This is achieved through bringing together the Iteration planning and testing, within the later Development phase of a project. It means that a Project Leader is only primarily focused on the top-level requirements and estimates at the first phase of a project. The critical Bottom-level requirements (or mini projects) are gathered and planned according to priority.

Knowing when to use Agile

What I have found is whilst Waterfall and V-Lifecycle work very well for the smaller and more standard projects with less attributed risks, Incremental phase, and Agile style methodology can greatly benefit larger and more complicated projects. Obviously I am biased to within the Digital industry where requirements do change more to real time due to fast moving technology changes. The need to keep up is always apparent.

What has become apparent to me is that there are two key areas, which businesses can focus to help them embrace Agile; These are:

1) The ability to expect and adapt to changing requirements. Are there studio or company restraints that are now allowing for this?

2) Demonstrating often, reducing risk and providing transparency. Incorporating more opportunities for iteration planning and testing during development, through the use of Wire Frames and Use Case modelling.

These key areas have been developed as part of the 12 principles of Agile Software Manifesto, which helps solidify the holistic view to Agile at it’s core

http://agilemanifesto.org

Elements of Agile methodology

Additionally, it helps to incorporate correct Scrum and Sprint methods within the lifecycle, to really benefit the project. Scrums should be held daily and only last around 15 minutes, as a way to quickly capture and solve the biggest issues happening within a critical project. Therefore it should only include the priority team members at that time. My recent training and resources have told me that for a Scrum to be advantageous as part of an Agile framework, it must follow the below, otherwise it won’t allow you to achieve real Lean solutions for your project:

• Should only last around 15 minutes daily
• What has been done since last meeting?
• Do you have any obstacles?
• What will you do before next meeting?

Further reading

BA Times offer free training Webinars for developing BAs if you are interested to find out more about how Agile can work for you.

https://www.batimes.com/business-analyst-training/training-home.html

Helen Barnshaw

Developing Business Analyst 

The importance of the BA in today's Cloud Computing

Great article on the importance of the BA in today's fast past Cloud-based technology.
Cloud technology offers easy resource pooling and making files more readily and easily available to the user. It offers the best way to maintain and share the newest products, making it easier to keep abreast of the ever growing technology.


Read more through BA Times:

https://www.batimes.com/articles/in-the-age-of-cloud-computing-business-analysts-are-more-essential-than-ever.html


Helen Barnshaw (Digital Business Analyst)