meaning of gap analysis in research

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What is Gap Analysis: Definition, Method, and Template

It’s an old problem in business: you want to grow your company and put your strategy into action, but you need to know where or how to put your money to make it happen. Sounds familiar? You should do a gap analysis if this is the case.

An organization needs to make the best use of its resources, money, and technology to reach its full potential. A gap analysis can help in this situation.

A gap analysis also called a needs analysis, is important for the performance of any organization. It lets companies see where they are now and where they want to be. With a gap analysis, companies can look at their goals again to see if they are on the right track to achieving them.

So this blog will explain gap analysis, its methods, gap analysis template, and more.

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You will read in detail about the 5 gap analysis tools that your business might need to learn and identify the gaps in your business and excel by analyzing the data collected by following the steps on how to do a gap analysis. Let us first understand the tools needed to conduct a gap analysis.

Content Index

Gap Analysis: Definition

Importance of gap analysis, types of gap analysis, when to use a gap analysis.

• How to Do: A 5-Step gap analysis template with an example

Gap analysis tools

Gap analysis process using questionpro survey software.

The term “gap” refers to the space between “where we are” (the present state) and where “we want to be” (the target state). Gap analysis assesses the differences between the actual and expected performance in an organization or a business. It can also be called a need analysis, need assessment, or need-gap analysis.

In the 1980s, gap analyses were often used together with duration analyses. It is harder to use and less common than a duration analysis, but it can still be used to determine how exposed you are to different changes in the term structure.

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Consider hypothetically, as an organization, and you have manufactured product A. This product has reached the target audience in the market. Product A has all the qualities to excel in the market, including the right features, pricing margin, and demand. Yet the product didn’t perform well in the market for some reason.

Learn more: What is Market Research?

Gap analysis can be performed on:

• A Strategic Level – to compare the condition or level of your company with that of the industry standards
• At an Operational Level – To compare your business’s current state or performance with what you had desired.

Here is where a gap analysis process would play a crucial role in understanding internal and external factors, where the product is and what it lacks, where it needs to be to secure its place in the market and give a tough fight to any other competitor offering a similar product.

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Here are some key points that show how gap analysis is important:

• Gap analysis helps find areas for improvement in your processes, products, or services.
• It helps to develop good plans to close the gaps between what they want to do and what they do.
• It aids in setting priorities and effectively allocating resources.
• Pointing out areas where organizations need to be more compliant helps ensure compliance with rules and regulations.
• This can help improve performance, increase efficiency, and cut costs.
• It enhances decision-making and enables companies to make smart choices by providing data-driven insights.
• By identifying gaps in the market or customer needs, it can find opportunities for growth and expansion.
• The effectiveness of improvement initiatives over time can be tracked using it to gauge progress.

Gap analysis is useful for businesses that want to improve performance, get more done, and reach their goals.

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Businesses can use different kinds of gap analysis, depending on their needs and goals. Here are a few of the most popular:

1. Performance gap analysis

This type of analysis finds the difference between an organization’s or person’s expected performance and their actual performance.

2. Product gap analysis

This analysis finds the difference between the features and capabilities of a product and what the customer wants.

3. Market gap analysis

This analysis examines the gap between the market’s wants and the company’s products or services.

4. Compliance gap analysis

This analysis shows the difference between the required regulatory standards and what an organization does.

5. Strategic gap analysis

This type of analysis helps organizations find the gap between where they are now and where they want to be in the future regarding their strategic objectives and goals.

By choosing the right type of gap analysis, companies can learn important things about their performance, find places to improve, and develop effective plans to reach their desired state.

A gap analysis can be used in many situations, including:

• Process Improvement: When a business wants to improve its processes or operations, a profit gap analysis can find areas of inefficiency or performance that need fixing.
• Product Development: this can be used to evaluate customer needs and expectations to ensure a new product meets their needs.
• Compliance and Risk Management: It can help find regulatory gaps and ensure an organization follows all laws and rules.
• Organizational Change: When a company’s structure changes, it can help find areas of misalignment or gaps in research skills , knowledge, or resources that need to be addressed.
• Performance Management: It can help find areas where employees, teams, or departments aren’t performing as well as they could be and develop plans to improve performance and productivity.

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In these situations, companies can use it to find areas that need improvement, decide which actions to take first and develop effective strategic planning to reach their goals.

How to Do: A 5-step gap analysis template with an example

A gap analysis template shows employees where your company can improve by showing the difference between reality and target. It’s a terrific method to visualize data and illustrate where your company is suffering and excelling.

In our discussion of the gap analysis template below, we’ll cover the steps of conducting it that can be applied inside a department, your entire firm, or a particular process. The four phases in the template below will help you identify and fix your research problems .

The following steps of conducting a gap analysis template can be followed to analyze and identify loops in your entire business:

Step 1: Identify the area to focus on-

You need to know where to focus. That will be your primary requirement. Whether the issue is financing, product quality or marketing, etc, be specific so that you can focus better.

For example, suppose you want to identify the gaps in your ketchup business. In that case, you need to decide whether to focus on product quality or marketing to identify and eliminate those gaps.

Step 2: Identify what goals you want to achieve-

Now that you know the area to focus on, set your target or goals. Set realistic smart goals and make sure to align them with your business goals and needs. 

For instance, your ketchup manufacturing business aims to produce and sell 162000 units of ketchup in the next year compared to 120000 being sold this year.

Step 3: Know your current state-

Before you go any further, know where you stand currently. By looking into your business reports, you will know your current position in the market, brainstorm and gather as much data as possible on your business’s current performance.

In this case, your ketchup brand currently sells around 100000 units monthly.

Step 4: Determine where you want to be in the future-

Define and determine your parameters, and remember you have set smart goals. By achieving those goals, you will be able to achieve the desired position for your business in the future.

For instance, for your ketchup brand, answer the following question in this step:

Where do you foresee your ketchup manufacturing business in the next year? – The answer can probably be a 35% increase in monthly unit sales.

Step 5: Understand the gaps between the two states-

Now that you have a clear understanding of the attributes of where you stand currently (present state) and where you desire to be in the future (desired state), it is now easy for you to identify what is stopping you from achieving your targets. After you have identified your gaps, make yourself equipped to close those gaps.

You need to understand the drawbacks of your current situation compared to your aspirations. Understand factors such as: What are the efforts being made to achieve success? Or Are attempts being made to improve the quality of the product? Or What are the marketing activities being conducted to hike up the sales volume?

The production needs to ramp up along with a boost in marketing and sales activities. Many teams have to work in unison to sell 135000 units a month compared to the existing 100000 units. Marketing managers need to develop effective strategies for improvement on the basis of the identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the business.

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If you are a business owner, ask yourself 

• How far have you come from the work you had planned at the beginning of the year?
• What products or services were you promised to roll out? 
• Are they already on the floor?
• Do you have an idea about what worked and what didn’t? And why?

This type of tool can help you compare your business or project’s actual performance against the performance you had planned to achieve. This way, you can figure out what worked for you and what didn’t, what decision you made right and what was not so right!

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Here are the 3 gap analysis tools you can use when conducting a gap analysis for your business or organization:

SWOT focuses on Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats in the internal and external environment analysis , respectively. SWOT analysis helps you determine your current industry or market position.

How to carry out SWOT to analyze Gap?

• Gather a team of experts from the relevant department so that their expertise will help you identify the problem and the gaps immediately.
• Create a SWOT analysis matrix.
• Next, list down all the internal strengths and weaknesses.
• Note down the opportunities and threats that an external environment might cause.
• Rearrange each bullet point in order of highest priority at the top and the least important at the bottom.
• Analyze how you can use your strengths to minimize weaknesses and use the best available opportunities to avoid or eliminate threats.

Fig: SWOT Analysis Matrix

Learn more: Strategic Analysis for business research

• McKinsey 7s

McKinsey 7s can help you with the following gap analysis purpose:

• To help you understand the gaps that are evident and that may appear 
• To help you identify the areas to optimize and boost performance
• To align the respective processes during a merger or an acquisition, if you have had one recently or are planning to have one.
• Helps you examine the results of future changes within the business.

Learn more: How to do Market Research for a Business Plan

The 7s refers to the key interrelated elements of an organization. They are:

• Shared values

These elements are divided into two distinct groups: hard elements (tangible factors that can be controlled) and soft elements (intangible factors that cannot be controlled)

Hard elements are as follows:

• Strategy – the plan that will help your company gain an advantage over any of your competitors .
• Structure – the plan or the layout that will define your entire organizational chart structure.
• Systems – business and technical knowledge your employees already use to complete their daily tasks.

Learn more: Employee Evaluation Survey

Soft elements are as follows:

• Shared values – these are the set of beliefs or traits that the organization values.
• Style – A leadership style that defines the organization’s culture.
• Staff – people who are the backbone or the asset of an organization.
• Skills – The tool that the employees have to help you succeed.

How to apply McKinsey 7s?

• Start with gathering a competent team.
• Look for gaps and weaknesses and align the relationship between the elements.
• State where the elements will be optimally aligned. When we speak about elements, we are referring to the 7s.
• Come up with a suitable plan of action to realign the elements.
• Implement the changes or the solution you have come up with and reduce the gap.

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• Nadler-Tushman’s Congruence Model

This model is based on the principle that business performance is the result of 4 key elements: work, people, structure, and culture .

How to apply this model?

• First and foremost, gather all the data that point you toward any or all symptoms of poor performance.
• Specify inputs i.e, whether it’s environment, resources, or history that is causing these poor performances.
• Identify which outputs are required at the organizational level so that the organization can meet all strategic objectives.
• Now assess the degree of congruence among all the mentioned components.
• Strategize and put down a plan of action.

Learn more: Qualitative Market Research

QuestionPro market research survey software is a platform that helps you identify gaps in your business by making available the gap analysis template. A new question type has been added to the QuestionPro survey system to run comparisons between expectation and delivery specifically.

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In most cases, this realizes itself by asking customers/potential respondents to rate different attributes (Customer Service, On-Time delivery, etc.) on the importance and a satisfaction rating scale . We call this the side-by-side matrix question (the alternative name is a multi-dimensional matrix) — basically two (or more) matrix questions placed next to each other. Follow these simple steps to run a it .

How can you access Gap Analysis?

• Login » Surveys » Reports » Choice Modelling
• Select GAP Analysis .

Select the question from the drop-down menu and select the Gap analysis option.

Once you have analyzed the question, you can also download the report in excel, PowerPoint, or even print it.

Learn more: Trend Analysis

Gap analysis is one of the most effective ways to find growth opportunities. It gives your company a strategy based on data and the standards of your industry.

LEARN ABOUT: 12 Best Tools for Researchers

Meeting people’s expectations is never easy, but the analysis helps you make a plan by taking things one step at a time. It is a thorough, step-by-step process that gives you a detailed action plan. You can use it to fix a specific problem or just be proactive about making new strategies.

QuestionPro has useful tools that can help you do a good gap analysis. By using its survey and research tools, businesses can find out where they can improve and develop plans to close the gaps in their performance.

QuestionPro’s easy-to-use interface and customizable features make it a complete solution for companies that want to improve their processes and grow. So sign up now to get your desired outcome!

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Home » Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to Identify

Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to Identify

Table of Contents

Research Gap

Definition:

Research gap refers to an area or topic within a field of study that has not yet been extensively researched or is yet to be explored. It is a question, problem or issue that has not been addressed or resolved by previous research.

How to Identify Research Gap

Identifying a research gap is an essential step in conducting research that adds value and contributes to the existing body of knowledge. Research gap requires critical thinking, creativity, and a thorough understanding of the existing literature . It is an iterative process that may require revisiting and refining your research questions and ideas multiple times.

Here are some steps that can help you identify a research gap:

• Review existing literature: Conduct a thorough review of the existing literature in your research area. This will help you identify what has already been studied and what gaps still exist.
• Identify a research problem: Identify a specific research problem or question that you want to address.
• Analyze existing research: Analyze the existing research related to your research problem. This will help you identify areas that have not been studied, inconsistencies in the findings, or limitations of the previous research.
• Brainstorm potential research ideas : Based on your analysis, brainstorm potential research ideas that address the identified gaps.
• Consult with experts: Consult with experts in your research area to get their opinions on potential research ideas and to identify any additional gaps that you may have missed.
• Refine research questions: Refine your research questions and hypotheses based on the identified gaps and potential research ideas.
• Develop a research proposal: Develop a research proposal that outlines your research questions, objectives, and methods to address the identified research gap.

Types of Research Gap

There are different types of research gaps that can be identified, and each type is associated with a specific situation or problem. Here are the main types of research gaps and their explanations:

Theoretical Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of theoretical understanding or knowledge in a particular area. It can occur when there is a discrepancy between existing theories and empirical evidence or when there is no theory that can explain a particular phenomenon. Identifying theoretical gaps can lead to the development of new theories or the refinement of existing ones.

Empirical Gap

An empirical gap occurs when there is a lack of empirical evidence or data in a particular area. It can happen when there is a lack of research on a specific topic or when existing research is inadequate or inconclusive. Identifying empirical gaps can lead to the development of new research studies to collect data or the refinement of existing research methods to improve the quality of data collected.

Methodological Gap

This type of research gap refers to a lack of appropriate research methods or techniques to answer a research question. It can occur when existing methods are inadequate, outdated, or inappropriate for the research question. Identifying methodological gaps can lead to the development of new research methods or the modification of existing ones to better address the research question.

Practical Gap

A practical gap occurs when there is a lack of practical applications or implementation of research findings. It can occur when research findings are not implemented due to financial, political, or social constraints. Identifying practical gaps can lead to the development of strategies for the effective implementation of research findings in practice.

Knowledge Gap

This type of research gap occurs when there is a lack of knowledge or information on a particular topic. It can happen when a new area of research is emerging, or when research is conducted in a different context or population. Identifying knowledge gaps can lead to the development of new research studies or the extension of existing research to fill the gap.

Examples of Research Gap

Here are some examples of research gaps that researchers might identify:

• Theoretical Gap Example : In the field of psychology, there might be a theoretical gap related to the lack of understanding of the relationship between social media use and mental health. Although there is existing research on the topic, there might be a lack of consensus on the mechanisms that link social media use to mental health outcomes.
• Empirical Gap Example : In the field of environmental science, there might be an empirical gap related to the lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on biodiversity in specific regions. Although there might be some studies on the topic, there might be a lack of data on the long-term effects of climate change on specific species or ecosystems.
• Methodological Gap Example : In the field of education, there might be a methodological gap related to the lack of appropriate research methods to assess the impact of online learning on student outcomes. Although there might be some studies on the topic, existing research methods might not be appropriate to assess the complex relationships between online learning and student outcomes.
• Practical Gap Example: In the field of healthcare, there might be a practical gap related to the lack of effective strategies to implement evidence-based practices in clinical settings. Although there might be existing research on the effectiveness of certain practices, they might not be implemented in practice due to various barriers, such as financial constraints or lack of resources.
• Knowledge Gap Example: In the field of anthropology, there might be a knowledge gap related to the lack of understanding of the cultural practices of indigenous communities in certain regions. Although there might be some research on the topic, there might be a lack of knowledge about specific cultural practices or beliefs that are unique to those communities.

Examples of Research Gap In Literature Review, Thesis, and Research Paper might be:

• Literature review : A literature review on the topic of machine learning and healthcare might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of machine learning for early detection of rare diseases.
• Thesis : A thesis on the topic of cybersecurity might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in detecting and preventing cyber attacks.
• Research paper : A research paper on the topic of natural language processing might identify a research gap in the lack of studies that investigate the use of natural language processing techniques for sentiment analysis in non-English languages.

How to Write Research Gap

By following these steps, you can effectively write about research gaps in your paper and clearly articulate the contribution that your study will make to the existing body of knowledge.

Here are some steps to follow when writing about research gaps in your paper:

• Identify the research question : Before writing about research gaps, you need to identify your research question or problem. This will help you to understand the scope of your research and identify areas where additional research is needed.
• Review the literature: Conduct a thorough review of the literature related to your research question. This will help you to identify the current state of knowledge in the field and the gaps that exist.
• Identify the research gap: Based on your review of the literature, identify the specific research gap that your study will address. This could be a theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, or knowledge gap.
• Provide evidence: Provide evidence to support your claim that the research gap exists. This could include a summary of the existing literature, a discussion of the limitations of previous studies, or an analysis of the current state of knowledge in the field.
• Explain the importance: Explain why it is important to fill the research gap. This could include a discussion of the potential implications of filling the gap, the significance of the research for the field, or the potential benefits to society.
• State your research objectives: State your research objectives, which should be aligned with the research gap you have identified. This will help you to clearly articulate the purpose of your study and how it will address the research gap.

Importance of Research Gap

The importance of research gaps can be summarized as follows:

• Advancing knowledge: Identifying research gaps is crucial for advancing knowledge in a particular field. By identifying areas where additional research is needed, researchers can fill gaps in the existing body of knowledge and contribute to the development of new theories and practices.
• Guiding research: Research gaps can guide researchers in designing studies that fill those gaps. By identifying research gaps, researchers can develop research questions and objectives that are aligned with the needs of the field and contribute to the development of new knowledge.
• Enhancing research quality: By identifying research gaps, researchers can avoid duplicating previous research and instead focus on developing innovative research that fills gaps in the existing body of knowledge. This can lead to more impactful research and higher-quality research outputs.
• Informing policy and practice: Research gaps can inform policy and practice by highlighting areas where additional research is needed to inform decision-making. By filling research gaps, researchers can provide evidence-based recommendations that have the potential to improve policy and practice in a particular field.

Applications of Research Gap

Here are some potential applications of research gap:

• Informing research priorities: Research gaps can help guide research funding agencies and researchers to prioritize research areas that require more attention and resources.
• Identifying practical implications: Identifying gaps in knowledge can help identify practical applications of research that are still unexplored or underdeveloped.
• Stimulating innovation: Research gaps can encourage innovation and the development of new approaches or methodologies to address unexplored areas.
• Improving policy-making: Research gaps can inform policy-making decisions by highlighting areas where more research is needed to make informed policy decisions.
• Enhancing academic discourse: Research gaps can lead to new and constructive debates and discussions within academic communities, leading to more robust and comprehensive research.

Advantages of Research Gap

Here are some of the advantages of research gap:

• Identifies new research opportunities: Identifying research gaps can help researchers identify areas that require further exploration, which can lead to new research opportunities.
• Improves the quality of research: By identifying gaps in current research, researchers can focus their efforts on addressing unanswered questions, which can improve the overall quality of research.
• Enhances the relevance of research: Research that addresses existing gaps can have significant implications for the development of theories, policies, and practices, and can therefore increase the relevance and impact of research.
• Helps avoid duplication of effort: Identifying existing research can help researchers avoid duplicating efforts, saving time and resources.
• Helps to refine research questions: Research gaps can help researchers refine their research questions, making them more focused and relevant to the needs of the field.
• Promotes collaboration: By identifying areas of research that require further investigation, researchers can collaborate with others to conduct research that addresses these gaps, which can lead to more comprehensive and impactful research outcomes.

Disadvantages of Research Gap

While research gaps can be advantageous, there are also some potential disadvantages that should be considered:

• Difficulty in identifying gaps: Identifying gaps in existing research can be challenging, particularly in fields where there is a large volume of research or where research findings are scattered across different disciplines.
• Lack of funding: Addressing research gaps may require significant resources, and researchers may struggle to secure funding for their work if it is perceived as too risky or uncertain.
• Time-consuming: Conducting research to address gaps can be time-consuming, particularly if the research involves collecting new data or developing new methods.
• Risk of oversimplification: Addressing research gaps may require researchers to simplify complex problems, which can lead to oversimplification and a failure to capture the complexity of the issues.
• Bias : Identifying research gaps can be influenced by researchers’ personal biases or perspectives, which can lead to a skewed understanding of the field.
• Potential for disagreement: Identifying research gaps can be subjective, and different researchers may have different views on what constitutes a gap in the field, leading to disagreements and debate.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How To Find A Research Gap, Quickly

A step-by-step guide for new researchers

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Reviewer: Eunice Rautenbach (DTech) | April 2023

If you’ve got a dissertation, thesis or research project coming up, one of the first (and most important) things you’ll need to do is find a suitable research gap . In this post, we’ll share a straightforward process to help you uncover high-quality, original research gaps in a very time-efficient manner.

Overview: Finding Research Gaps

• What exactly is a research gap?
• Research gap vs research topic
• How to find potential research gaps
• How to evaluate research gaps (and topics)
• Key takeaways

What is a research gap?

As a starting point, it’s useful to first define what we mean by research gap, to ensure we’re all on the same page. The term “research gap” gets thrown around quite loosely by students and academics alike, so let’s clear that up.

Simply put, a research gap is any space where there’s a lack of solid, agreed-upon research regarding a specific topic, issue or phenomenon. In other words, there’s a lack of established knowledge and, consequently, a need for further research.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example to illustrate a research gap.

Within the existing research regarding factors affect job satisfaction , there may be a wealth of established and agreed-upon empirical work within a US and UK context , but very little research within Eastern nations such as Japan or Korea . Given that these nations have distinctly different national cultures and workforce compositions compared to the West, it’s plausible that the factors that contribute toward job satisfaction may also be different. Therefore, a research gap emerges for studies that explore this matter.

This example is purely hypothetical (and there’s probably plenty of research covering this already), but it illustrates the core point that a research gap reflects a lack of firmly established knowledge regarding a specific matter . Given this lack, an opportunity exists for researchers (like you) to go on and fill the gap.

So, it’s the same as a research topic?

Not quite – but they are connected. A research gap refers to an area where there’s a lack of settled research , whereas a research topic outlines the focus of a specific study . Despite being different things, these two are related because research gaps are the birthplace of research topics. In other words, by identifying a clear research gap, you have a foundation from which you can build a research topic for your specific study. Your study is unlikely to resolve the entire research gap on it’s own, but it will contribute towards it .

If you’d like to learn more, we’ve got a comprehensive post that covers research gaps (including the different types of research gaps), as well as an explainer video below.

How to find a research gap

Now that we’ve defined what a research gap is, it’s time to get down to the process of finding potential research gaps that you can use as a basis for potential research topics. Importantly, it’s worth noting that this is just one way (of many) to find a research gap (and consequently a topic). We’re not proposing that it’s the only way or best way, but it’s certainly a relatively quick way to identify opportunities.

Step 1: Identify your broad area of interest

The very first step to finding a research gap is to decide on your general area of interest . For example, if you were undertaking a dissertation as part of an MBA degree, you may decide that you’re interested in corporate reputation, HR strategy, or leadership styles. As you can see, these are broad categories – there’s no need to get super specific just yet. Of course, if there is something very specific that you’re interested in, that’s great – but don’t feel pressured to narrow it down too much right now.

Equally important is to make sure that this area of interest is allowed by your university or whichever institution you’ll be proposing your research to. This might sound dead obvious, but you’ll be surprised how many times we’ve seen students run down a path with great excitement, only to later learn that their university wants a very specific area of focus in terms of topic (and their area of interest doesn’t qualify).

Step 2: Do an initial literature scan

Once you’ve pinned down your broad area (or areas) of interest, the next step is to head over to Google Scholar to undertake an initial literature scan . If you’re not familiar with this tool, Google Scholar is a great starting point for finding academic literature on pretty much any topic, as it uses Google’s powerful search capabilities to hunt down relevant academic literature. It’s certainly not the be-all and end-all of literature search tools, but it’s a useful starting point .

Within Google Scholar, you’ll want to do a few searches using keywords that are relevant to your area of interest. Sticking with our earlier example, we could use the key phrase “job satisfaction”, or we may want to get a little more specific – perhaps “job satisfaction for millennials” or “job satisfaction in Japan”.

It’s always a good idea to play around with as many keywords/phrases as you can think up.  Take an iterative approach here and see which keywords yield the most relevant results for you. Keep each search open in a new tab, as this will help keep things organised for the next steps.

Once you’ve searched for a few different keywords/phrases, you’ll need to do some refining for each of the searches you undertook. Specifically, you’ll need to filter the results down to the most recent papers . You can do this by selecting the time period in the top left corner (see the example below).

Filtering to the current year is typically a good choice (especially for fast-moving research areas), but in some cases, you may need to filter to the last two years . If you’re undertaking this task in January or February, for example, you’ll likely need to select a two-year period.

Need a helping hand?

Step 3: Review and shortlist articles that interest you

Once you’ve run a few searches using different keywords and phrases, you’ll need to scan through the results to see what looks most relevant and interesting to you. At this stage, you can just look at the titles and abstracts (the description provided by Google Scholar) – don’t worry about reading the actual article just yet.

Next, select 5 – 10 articles that interest you and open them up. Here, we’re making the assumption that your university has provided you with access to a decent range of academic databases. In some cases, Google Scholar will link you directly to a PDF of the article, but in most cases, you’ll need paid access. If you don’t have this (for example, if you’re still applying to a university), you can look at two options:

Open-access articles – these are free articles which you can access without any journal subscription. A quick Google search (the regular Google) will help you find open-access journals in your area of interest, but you can also have a look at DOAJ and Elsevier Open Access.

DeepDyve – this is a monthly subscription service that allows you to get access to a broad range of journals. At the time of shooting this video, their monthly subscription is around $50 and they do offer a free trial, which may be sufficient for your project.

Step 4: Skim-read your article shortlist

Now, it’s time to dig into your article shortlist and do some reading. But don’t worry, you don’t need to read the articles from start to finish – you just need to focus on a few key sections.

Specifically, you’ll need to pay attention to the following:

• The abstract (which you’ve probably already read a portion of in Google Scholar)
• The introduction – this will give you a bit more detail about the context and background of the study, as well as what the researchers were trying to achieve (their research aims)
• The discussion or conclusion – this will tell you what the researchers found

By skimming through these three sections for each journal article on your shortlist, you’ll gain a reasonable idea of what each study was about, without having to dig into the painful details. Generally, these sections are usually quite short, so it shouldn’t take you too long.

Step 5: Go “FRIN hunting”

This is where the magic happens. Within each of the articles on your shortlist, you’ll want to search for a few very specific phrases , namely:

• Future research
• Further research
• Research opportunities
• Research directions

All of these terms are commonly found in what we call the “FRIN” section . FRIN stands for “further research is needed”. The FRIN is where the researchers explain what other researchers could do to build on their study, or just on the research area in general. In other words, the FRIN section is where you can find fresh opportunities for novel research . Most empirical studies will either have a dedicated FRIN section or paragraph, or they’ll allude to the FRIN toward the very end of the article. You’ll need to do a little scanning, but it’s usually pretty easy to spot.

It’s worth mentioning that naturally, the FRIN doesn’t hand you a list of research gaps on a platter. It’s not a silver bullet for finding research gaps – but it’s the closest thing to it. Realistically, the FRIN section helps you shortcut the gap-hunting process  by highlighting novel research avenues that are worth exploring.

This probably sounds a little conceptual, so let’s have a look at a few examples:

The impact of overeducation on job outcomes: Evidence from Saudi Arabia (Alzubaidi, 2020)

If you scroll down to the bottom of this article, you’ll see there’s a dedicated section called “Limitations and directions for future research”. Here they talk about the limitations of the study and provide suggestions about how future researchers could improve upon their work and overcome the limitations.

Perceived organizational support and job satisfaction: a moderated mediation model of proactive personality and psychological empowerment (Maan et al, 2020)

In this article, within the limitations section, they provide a wonderfully systematic structure where they discuss each limitation, followed by a proposal as to how future studies can overcome the respective limitation. In doing so, they are providing very specific research opportunities for other researchers.

Medical professionals’ job satisfaction and telemedicine readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic: solutions to improve medical practice in Egypt (El-Mazahy et al, 2023)

In this article, they don’t have a dedicated section discussing the FRIN, but we can deduct it based on the limitations section. For example, they state that an evaluation of the knowledge about telemedicine and technology-related skills would have enabled studying their independent effect on the perception of telemedicine.

Follow this FRIN-seeking process for the articles you shortlisted and map out any potentially interesting research gaps . You may find that you need to look at a larger number of articles to find something interesting, or you might find that your area of interest shifts as you engage in the reading – this is perfectly natural. Take as much time as you need to develop a shortlist of potential research gaps that interest you.

Importantly, once you’ve developed a shortlist of potential research gaps, you need to return to Google Scholar to double-check that there aren’t fresh studies that have already addressed the gap. Remember, if you’re looking at papers from two years ago in a fast-moving field, someone else may have jumped on it . Nevertheless, there could still very well be a unique angle you could take – perhaps a contextual gap (e.g. a specific country, industry, etc.).

Ultimately, the need for originality will depend on your specific university’s requirements and the level of study. For example, if you’re doing an undergraduate research project, the originality requirements likely won’t be as gruelling as say a Masters or PhD project. So, make sure you have a clear understanding of what your university’s expectations are. A good way to do this is to look at past dissertations and theses for your specific programme. You can usually find these in the university library or by asking the faculty.

How to evaluate potential research gaps

Once you’ve developed a shortlist of potential research gaps (and resultant potential research topics) that interest you, you’ll need to systematically evaluate  them  to choose a winner. There are many factors to consider here, but some important ones include the following:

• Originality and value – is the topic sufficiently novel and will addressing it create value?
• Data access – will you be able to get access to the sample of interest?
• Costs – will there be additional costs involved for data collection and/or analysis?
• Timeframes – will you be able to collect and analyse the data within the timeframe required by your university?
• Supervisor support – is there a suitable supervisor available to support your project from start to finish?

To help you evaluate your options systematically, we’ve got a topic evaluation worksheet that allows you to score each potential topic against a comprehensive set of criteria. You can access the worksheet completely free of charge here .

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered quite a lot of ground in this post. Here are the key takeaways:

• A research gap is any space where there’s a lack of solid, agreed-upon research regarding a specific topic/issue/phenomenon.
• Unique research topics emerge from research gaps , so it’s essential to first identify high-quality research gaps before you attempt to define a topic.
• To find potential research gaps, start by seeking out recent journal articles on Google Scholar and pay particular attention to the FRIN section to identify novel opportunities.
• Once you have a shortlist of prospective research gaps and resultant topic ideas, evaluate them systematically using a comprehensive set of criteria.

If you’d like to get hands-on help finding a research gap and research topic, be sure to check out our private coaching service , where we hold your hand through the research journey, step by step.

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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Very useful for me, but i am still confusing review of literature review, how to find out topic related previous research.

Powerful notes! Thanks a lot.

This is helpful. Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much for this. It is really a great opportunity for me to learn the research journey.

Very Useful

It nice job

You have sharpened my articulations of these components to the core. Thanks so much.

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Identifying Research Gaps to Pursue Innovative Research

This article is an excerpt from a lecture given by my Ph.D. guide, a researcher in public health. She advised us on how to identify research gaps to pursue innovative research in our fields.

What is a Research Gap?

Today we are talking about the research gap: what is it, how to identify it, and how to make use of it so that you can pursue innovative research. Now, how many of you have ever felt you had discovered a new and exciting research question , only to find that it had already been written about? I have experienced this more times than I can count. Graduate studies come with pressure to add new knowledge to the field. We can contribute to the progress and knowledge of humanity. To do this, we need to first learn to identify research gaps in the existing literature.

A research gap is, simply, a topic or area for which missing or insufficient information limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question. It should not be confused with a research question, however. For example, if we ask the research question of what the healthiest diet for humans is, we would find many studies and possible answers to this question. On the other hand, if we were to ask the research question of what are the effects of antidepressants on pregnant women, we would not find much-existing data. This is a research gap. When we identify a research gap, we identify a direction for potentially new and exciting research.

How to Identify Research Gap?

Considering the volume of existing research, identifying research gaps can seem overwhelming or even impossible. I don’t have time to read every paper published on public health. Similarly, you guys don’t have time to read every paper. So how can you identify a research gap?

There are different techniques in various disciplines, but we can reduce most of them down to a few steps, which are:

• Identify your key motivating issue/question
• Identify key terms associated with this issue
• Review the literature, searching for these key terms and identifying relevant publications
• Review the literature cited by the key publications which you located in the above step
• Identify issues not addressed by  the literature relating to your critical  motivating issue

It is the last step which we all find the most challenging. It can be difficult to figure out what an article is  not  saying. I like to keep a list of notes of biased or inconsistent information. You could also track what authors write as “directions for future research,” which often can point us towards the existing gaps.

Different Types of Research Gaps

Identifying research gaps is an essential step in conducting research, as it helps researchers to refine their research questions and to focus their research efforts on areas where there is a need for more knowledge or understanding.

1. Knowledge gaps

These are gaps in knowledge or understanding of a subject, where more research is needed to fill the gaps. For example, there may be a lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind a particular disease or how a specific technology works.

2. Conceptual gaps

These are gaps in the conceptual framework or theoretical understanding of a subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand the relationship between two concepts or to refine a theoretical framework.

3. Methodological gaps

These are gaps in the methods used to study a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to develop new research methods or to refine existing methods to address specific research questions.

4. Data gaps

These are gaps in the data available on a particular subject. For example, there may be a need for more research to collect data on a specific population or to develop new measures to collect data on a particular construct.

5. Practical gaps

These are gaps in the application of research findings to practical situations. For example, there may be a need for more research to understand how to implement evidence-based practices in real-world settings or to identify barriers to implementing such practices.

Examples of Research Gap

Limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a disease:.

Despite significant research on a particular disease, there may be a lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease. For example, although much research has been done on Alzheimer’s disease, the exact mechanisms that lead to the disease are not yet fully understood.

Inconsistencies in the findings of previous research:

When previous research on a particular topic has inconsistent findings, there may be a need for further research to clarify or resolve these inconsistencies. For example, previous research on the effectiveness of a particular treatment for a medical condition may have produced inconsistent findings, indicating a need for further research to determine the true effectiveness of the treatment.

Limited research on emerging technologies:

As new technologies emerge, there may be limited research on their applications, benefits, and potential drawbacks. For example, with the increasing use of artificial intelligence in various industries, there is a need for further research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of AI.

How to Deal with Literature Gap?

Once you have identified the literature gaps, it is critical to prioritize. You may find many questions which remain to be answered in the literature. Often one question must be answered before the next can be addressed. In prioritizing the gaps, you have identified, you should consider your funding agency or stakeholders, the needs of the field, and the relevance of your questions to what is currently being studied. Also, consider your own resources and ability to conduct the research you’re considering. Once you have done this, you can narrow your search down to an appropriate question.

Tools to Help Your Search

There are thousands of new articles published every day, and staying up to date on the literature can be overwhelming. You should take advantage of the technology that is available. Some services include  PubCrawler ,  Feedly ,  Google Scholar , and PubMed updates. Stay up to date on social media forums where scholars share new discoveries, such as Twitter. Reference managers such as  Mendeley  can help you keep your references well-organized. I personally have had success using Google Scholar and PubMed to stay current on new developments and track which gaps remain in my personal areas of interest.

The most important thing I want to impress upon you today is that you will struggle to  choose a research topic  that is innovative and exciting if you don’t know the existing literature well. This is why identifying research gaps starts with an extensive and thorough  literature review . But give yourself some boundaries.  You don’t need to read every paper that has ever been written on a topic. You may find yourself thinking you’re on the right track and then suddenly coming across a paper that you had intended to write! It happens to everyone- it happens to me quite often. Don’t give up- keep reading and you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Class dismissed!

How do you identify research gaps? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Frequently Asked Questions

A research gap can be identified by looking for a topic or area with missing or insufficient information that limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

Identifying a research gap is important as it provides a direction for potentially new research or helps bridge the gap in existing literature.

Gap in research is a topic or area with missing or insufficient information. A research gap limits the ability to reach a conclusion for a question.

Thank u for your suggestion.

Very useful tips specially for a beginner

Thank you. This is helpful. I find that I’m overwhelmed with literatures. As I read on a particular topic, and in a particular direction I find that other conflicting issues, topic a and ideas keep popping up, making me more confused.

I am very grateful for your advice. It’s just on point.

The clearest, exhaustive, and brief explanation I have ever read.

Thanks for sharing

Thank you very much.The work is brief and understandable

Thank you it is very informative

Thanks for sharing this educative article

Thank you for such informative explanation.

Great job smart guy! Really outdid yourself!

Nice one! I thank you for this as it is just what I was looking for!😃🤟

Thank you so much for this. Much appreciated

Thank you so much.

Thankyou for ur briefing…its so helpful

Thank you so much .I’ved learn a lot from this.❤️

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• Gap analysis for literature reviews and advancing useful knowledge

By Steve Wallis and Bernadette Wright 02/06/2020

The basics of research are seemingly clear. Read a lot of articles, see what’s missing, and conduct research to fill the gap in the literature. Wait a minute. What is that? ‘See what’s missing?’ How can we see something that is not there?

Imagine you are videoconferencing a colleague who is showing you the results of their project. Suddenly, the screen and sound cut out for a minute. After pressing some keys, you manage to restore the link; only to have your colleague ask, ‘What do you think?’. Of course, you know that you missed something from the presentation because of the disconnection. You can see that something is missing, and you know what to ask for to get your desired results, ‘Sorry, could you repeat that last minute of your presentation, please’. It’s not so easy when we’re looking at research results, proposals, or literature reviews.

While all research is, to some extent, useful, we’ve seen a lot of research that does not have the expected impact. That means wasted time, wasted money, under-served clients, and frustration on multiple levels. A big part of that problem is that directions for research are often chosen intuitively; in a sort of ad-hoc process. While we deeply respect the intuition of experts, that kind of process is not very rigorous.

In this post, we will show you how to ‘see the invisible’: How to identify the missing pieces in any study, literature review, or program analysis. With these straight-forward techniques, you will be able to better target your research in a more cost-effective way to fill those knowledge gaps to develop more effective theories, plans, and evaluations.

The first step is to choose your source material. That can be one or more articles, reports, or other study results. Of course, you want to be sure that the material you use is of high quality . Next, you want to create a causal map of your source material.

We’re going to go a bit abstract on you here because people sometimes get lost in the ‘content’ when what we are looking at here is more about the ‘structure’. Think of it like choosing how to buy a house based on how well it is built, rather than what color it is painted. So, instead of using actual concepts, we’ll refer to them as concepts A, B, C… and so on.

So, the text might say something like: ‘Our research shows that A causes B, B causes C, and D causes less C. Oh yes, and E is also important (although we’re not sure how it’s causally connected to A, B, C, or D)’.

When we draw causal maps from the source material we’ve found, we like to have key concepts in circles, with causal connections represented by arrows.

Figure 1. Abstract example of a causal map of a theory

There are really three basic kinds of gaps for you to find: relevance/meaning, logic/structure, and data/evidence. Starting with structure, there is a gap any place where there are two circles NOT connected by a causal arrow. It is important to have at least two arrows pointing at each concept/circle for the same reason we like to have multiple independent variables for each dependent variable (although, with more complex maps, we’re learning to see these as interdependent variables).

For example, there is no arrow between A and D. Also, there is no arrow between E and any of the other concepts. Each of those is a structural gap – an opening for additional research.

You might also notice that there are two arrows pointing directly at C. Like having two independent variables and one dependent variable, it is structurally better to have at least two arrows pointing at each concept.

So, structurally , C is in good shape. This part of the map has the least need for additional research. A larger gap exists around B, because it has only one arrow pointing at it (the arrow from A to B). Larger still is the gap around A, D, and E; because they have no arrows pointing at them.

To get the greatest leverage for your research dollar, it is generally best to search for that second arrow. In short, one research question would be: What (aside from A) has a causal influence on B? Other good research questions would be (a) Is there a causal relationship between A and D? (b) Is there a causal relationship between E and any of the other concepts? (c) What else besides A helps cause B? (d) What are the causes of A, D, and E?

Now, let’s take a look at gaps in the data, evidence, or information upon which each causal arrow is established.

From structure to data

Here, we add to the drawing by making a note showing (very briefly) the kind of data supporting each causal arrow. We like to have that in a box – with a loopy line ‘typing’ the evidence to the connection. You can also use different colors to more easily differentiate between the concepts and the evidence on your map. You can also write the note along the length of the arrow.

Figure 2. Tying the data to the structure

From data to stakeholder relevance

Finally, the gap in meaning (relevance) asks if those studies were done with the ‘right’ people. By this, we mean people related to the situation or topic you are studying. Managers, line workers, clients, suppliers, those providing related services; all of those and more should be included. Similarly, you might look to a variety of academic disciplines, drawing expertise from psychology, sociology, business, economics, policy, and others.

Which participants or stakeholders are actually part of your research depends on the project. However, in general, having a broader selection of stakeholder groups results in a better map. This applies to both choosing what concepts go on the map and also who to contact for interviews and surveys.

Visualizing the gaps

All of these three gaps – gaps in structure, data, and stakeholder perspectives – can (and should) be addressed to help you choose more focused directions for your research – to generate research results that will have more impact. As a final note, remember that many gaps may be filled with secondary research; a new literature review that fills the gaps in the logic/structure, data/information, and meaning/relevance of your map so that your organisation can have a greater impact.

Figure 3. Visualizing the gaps (shown in green)

Some deeper reading on literature reviews may be found here:

• Practical Mapping for Applied Research and Program Evaluation (SAGE) provides a ‘jargon free’ explanation for every phase of research:

https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/practical-mapping-for-applied-research-and-program-evaluation/book261152   (especially Chapter 3)

• This paper uses theories for addressing poverty from a range of academic disciplines and from policy centers from across the political spectrum as an example of interdisciplinary knowledge mapping and synthesis:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/K-03-2018-0136/full/html

• Restructuring evaluation findings into useful knowledge:

http://journals.sfu.ca/jmde/index.php/jmde_1/article/download/481/436/

This approach helps you to avoid fuzzy understandings and the dangerous ‘pretence of knowledge’ that occasionally crops up in some reports and recommendations. Everyone can see that a piece is missing and so more easily agree where more research is needed to advance our knowledge to better serve our organisational and community constituents.

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What is a Research Gap

• 3 minute read
• 282.8K views

Table of Contents

If you are a young researcher, or even still finishing your studies, you’ll probably notice that your academic environment revolves around certain research topics, probably linked to your department or to the interest of your mentor and direct colleagues. For example, if your department is currently doing research in nanotechnology applied to medicine, it is only natural that you feel compelled to follow this line of research. Hopefully, it’s something you feel familiar with and interested in – although you might take your own twists and turns along your career.

Many scientists end up continuing their academic legacy during their professional careers, writing about their own practical experiences in the field and adapting classic methodologies to a present context. However, each and every researcher dreams about being a pioneer in a subject one day, by discovering a topic that hasn’t been approached before by any other scientist. This is a research gap.

Research gaps are particularly useful for the advance of science, in general. Finding a research gap and having the means to develop a complete and sustained study on it can be very rewarding for the scientist (or team of scientists), not to mention how its new findings can positively impact our whole society.

How to Find a Gap in Research

How many times have you felt that you have finally formulated THAT new and exciting question, only to find out later that it had been addressed before? Probably more times than you can count.

There are some steps you can take to help identify research gaps, since it is impossible to go through all the information and research available nowadays:

• Select a topic or question that motivates you: Research can take a long time and surely a large amount of physical, intellectual and emotional effort, therefore choose a topic that can keep you motivated throughout the process.
• Find keywords and related terms to your selected topic: Besides synthesizing the topic to its essential core, this will help you in the next step.
• Use the identified keywords to search literature: From your findings in the above step, identify relevant publications and cited literature in those publications.
• Look for topics or issues that are missing or not addressed within (or related to) your main topic.
• Read systematic reviews: These documents plunge deeply into scholarly literature and identify trends and paradigm shifts in fields of study. Sometimes they reveal areas or topics that need more attention from researchers and scientists.

Keeping track of all the new literature being published every day is an impossible mission. Remember that there is technology to make your daily tasks easier, and reviewing literature can be one of them. Some online databases offer up-to-date publication lists with quite effective search features:

• Elsevier’s Scope
• Google Scholar

Of course, these tools may be more or less effective depending on knowledge fields. There might be even better ones for your specific topic of research; you can learn about them from more experienced colleagues or mentors.

Find out how FINER research framework can help you formulate your research question.

Literature Gap

The expression “literature gap” is used with the same intention as “research gap.” When there is a gap in the research itself, there will also naturally be a gap in the literature. Nevertheless, it is important to stress out the importance of language or text formulations that can help identify a research/literature gap or, on the other hand, making clear that a research gap is being addressed.

When looking for research gaps across publications you may have noticed sentences like:

…has/have not been… (studied/reported/elucidated) …is required/needed… …the key question is/remains… …it is important to address…

These expressions often indicate gaps; issues or topics related to the main question that still hasn’t been subject to a scientific study. Therefore, it is important to take notice of them: who knows if one of these sentences is hiding your way to fame.

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

• Manuscript Review

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How to identify research gaps

Anthony Newman

About this video

Researching is an ongoing task, as it requires you to think of something nobody else has thought of before. This is where the research gap comes into play.

We will explain what a research gap is, provide you with steps on how to identify these research gaps, as well as provide you several tools that can help you identify them.

About the presenter

Senior Publisher, Life Sciences, Elsevier

Anthony Newman is a Senior Publisher with Elsevier and is based in Amsterdam. Each year he presents numerous Author Workshops and other similar trainings worldwide. He is currently responsible for fifteen biochemistry and laboratory medicine journals, he joined Elsevier over thirty years ago and has been Publisher for more than twenty of those years. Before then he was the marketing communications manager for the biochemistry journals of Elsevier.  By training he is a polymer chemist and was active in the surface coating industry before leaving London and moving to Amsterdam in 1987 to join Elsevier.

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Robinson KA, Saldanha IJ, Mckoy NA. Frameworks for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Reviews [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2011 Jun. (Methods Future Research Needs Reports, No. 2.)

Frameworks for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Reviews [Internet].

We used multiple resources and sought different perspectives to develop a framework for the identification of research gaps. We carried out six steps. We first attempted to identify, enumerate and describe frameworks that have been used (steps 1 to 3). We then developed, tested and refined a framework (steps 4 to 6). The six steps are:

• Focused literature review
• Review of current practices of evidence-based practice centers (EPCs)
• Review of current practices of organizations involved with evidence synthesis
• Development of framework
• Pilot test of framework
• Refinement and finalization of framework.

Step 1. Focused Literature Review

We sought English-language articles that described the identification of research gaps, research needs, or evidence gaps from systematic reviews or related processes such as health technology assessments (HTAs). We completed a search of MEDLINE © via PubMed (April 22, 2010). We analyzed the terms used in eligible articles identified during preliminary searching to develop a search strategy. We combined controlled vocabulary terms and text words for systematic review, meta-analysis, evidence-based medicine, research needs, and research gaps to create the following search strategy:

((review literature as topic[mh] OR meta-analysis as topic[mh] OR evidence-based medicine[mh] OR systematic reviews[tiab] OR systematic review[tiab] OR technology assessment[tiab] OR technology assessments[tiab] OR meta-analysis[tiab] OR meta-analyses[tiab]) AND (research needs[tiab] OR gaps[tiab] OR research priorities[tiab])).

All search results were imported into a database maintained in reference management software (ProCite™, Thomson Reuters, New York, NY). A custom work form was used to track the searching and screening processes. All citations were screened for eligibility at the title and abstract level by one reviewer. Citations deemed eligible or of unclear eligibility were reviewed by a second reviewer. We obtained full-text articles of citations confirmed as eligible or of unclear eligibility. These full-text articles were then independently screened by two reviewers. Disagreements concerning eligibility were resolved by consensus or by a third reviewer. We excluded citations from further consideration if they:

• Were not in English;
• Did not have an objective to identify research gaps/needs;
• Did not use a systematic review or similar process to identify research gaps/needs;
• Did not include a description of methods or process for identifying research gaps/needs; or
• Were otherwise eligible but used guidelines as basis for identification of research gaps/needs.

We scanned the reference lists of included articles. From each included article we abstracted the topic area and the method of identifying research gaps/needs that was described in the text or figures. We also abstracted the organizing principle(s) that was (were) used to identify research gaps/needs.

Step 2. Review of Current Practices of Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs)

Audit of evidence reports from epcs.

We searched the AHRQ website ( http://www.ahrq.gov/ ) for evidence reports that satisfied the following criteria (as of April 12, 2010):

• Published in 2008 or later;
• Classified as “Clinical” or “Health Care Services” (we did not consider “Technical” reports); and
• Produced by an EPC that is part of AHRQ ’s EPC program between 2007 and 2012.

We randomly selected one report if there was more than one report that satisfied the above criteria from the same EPC . One team member abstracted the following data from each of the evidence reports using a form designed in Excel (Microsoft™, Redmond, WA) (see Appendix B for data abstraction form):

• Whether or not the terms research gaps/needs were defined;
• Whether or not there was a description of how research gaps/needs were identified;
• Whether or not there was an explicit framework/set of organizing principles used for the identification of research gaps/needs;
• Whether or not research gaps/needs were presented;
• Location(s) of presentation of research gaps/needs in the report; and
• How research gaps/needs were presented (e.g., an unordered list, separated by key question, separated by type of study, as a figure/conceptual framework).

Verification of Abstracted Information

We contacted the EPCs that produced the evidence reports selected for abstraction. We contacted the primary author of the evidence report. If it was unclear who the primary author was, or if we were not able to contact the primary author, we contacted the current director of the EPC that produced the report. We provided a summary of what was abstracted from the report and asked for any corrections and clarifications. If no explicit framework was identified in our review of the report, we asked if the EPC had implemented a process since the publication of the report. If so, the EPC was asked to provide a description of the process and to indicate when it was implemented. Each EPC was contacted via email.

Step 3. Review of Current Practices of Organizations Involved With Evidence Synthesis

We identified organizations that develop systematic reviews or related products such as HTAs. We compiled a list by pooling together organizations from the following two sources:

• All current member organizations of the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment ( INAHTA ) (as listed on the INAHTA website http://www.inahta.org/ on April 27, 2010); and
• All current member organizations of the Guidelines International Network ( G-I-N ) from the United States ( US ), United Kingdom ( UK ), Canada, and Australia that are involved with systematic reviews, technology assessments ( TA ), or cost-effectiveness analyses ( CEA ) (as listed on the G-I-N website http://www.g-i-n.net/ on April 27, 2010).

Each organization was contacted via email and asked:

• Whether or not they have a formal process for identifying research gaps/needs;
• When the formal process (if any) for identifying research gaps/needs was implemented; and
• To provide a description of the formal process (if any).

Based on responses received from these organizations, we made independent determinations of whether the processes were formal or not. We determined processes to be formal if the organization stated that it had a formal process currently being implemented and if the process or method used was explicitly described. If formal, we assessed whether the process was directed at the identification of gaps/needs for primary research, systematic reviews, HTAs, and/or guidelines. We only included for further consideration the formal processes used by organizations for the identification of research gaps/needs for primary research.

Step 4. Development of Framework

We considered the various elements of research gaps noted in the literature and identified by the EPCs and organizations. Based on these elements and known important aspects of research questions, we developed a framework for the identification and organization of research gaps. This framework included an explicit determination and classification of the reason(s) why each research gap exists. We developed a worksheet to facilitate the use of the framework by investigators to systematically identify, organize, and record research gaps identified during the conduct of an evidence report.

Technical Expert Review

Once we developed the initial version of the framework, we sought feedback from two technical experts from our institution. We asked these experts to review the framework and the worksheet and to comment on the clarity and potential ease of use. We also asked them to provide general comments and suggestions for specific items that might need to be added, removed, or reworded. The framework and worksheet were refined after receipt of feedback from the technical experts.

Step 5. Pilot Test of Framework

Selection of epc evidence reports for pilot test.

We pilot tested the framework on two evidence reports not produced by our EPC . These reports were randomly selected from a pool of available reports from the AHRQ Website ( http://www.ahrq.gov/ ) which met the following criteria (as of August 02, 2010): published in 2008 or later; classified as “Clinical” or “Health Care Services” (we did not consider “Technical” reports); and produced by an EPC that is part of AHRQ's EPC program between 2007 and 2012.

Process for Pilot Test of Framework

Two team members independently applied the framework to each selected evidence report using the worksheet. The purpose was to assess the usability of the worksheet in abstracting and identifying research gaps. We decided to focus on the results sections because we wanted to simulate, as closely as possible, the process that investigators would follow in using this framework and worksheet. We envision that investigators would fill out this worksheet soon after the data synthesis phase, while writing the results section of the evidence report. Team members thus read the results sections of the reports to abstract individual research gaps. If necessary, team members read other sections of the reports. Team members also kept track of the number of key questions, number of research gaps abstracted, and number of gaps which were abstracted but could not be fit into the framework. We recorded the time taken to complete this process per evidence report. After reviewing the evidence reports and abstracting research gaps, we compared the lists of gaps identified by the two team members. We also compared the gaps we identified with those presented in the future research sections of the respective evidence reports.

Step 6. Refinement and Finalization of Framework

We refined the framework and the worksheet based on our results from the pilot test.

• Cite this Page Robinson KA, Saldanha IJ, Mckoy NA. Frameworks for Determining Research Gaps During Systematic Reviews [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2011 Jun. (Methods Future Research Needs Reports, No. 2.) Methods.
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Last Updated: Jun 27, 2023 Views: 464362

What is a research gap.

A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research (studies on Internet use in 2001, for example). Or, perhaps a specific population has not been well studied (perhaps there are plenty of studies on teenagers and video games, but not enough studies on toddlers and video games, for example). These are just a few examples, but any research gap you find is an area where more studies and more research need to be conducted. Please view this video clip from our Sage Research Methods database for more helpful information: How Do You Identify Gaps in Literature?

How do I find one?

It will take a lot of research and reading.  You'll need to be very familiar with all the studies that have already been done, and what those studies contributed to the overall body of knowledge about that topic. Make a list of any questions you have about your topic and then do some research to see if those questions have already been answered satisfactorily. If they haven't, perhaps you've discovered a gap!  Here are some strategies you can use to make the most of your time:

• One useful trick is to look at the “suggestions for future research” or conclusion section of existing studies on your topic. Many times, the authors will identify areas where they think a research gap exists, and what studies they think need to be done in the future.
• As you are researching, you will most likely come across citations for seminal works in your research field. These are the research studies that you see mentioned again and again in the literature.  In addition to finding those and reading them, you can use a database like Web of Science to follow the research trail and discover all the other articles that have cited these. See the FAQ: I found the perfect article for my paper. How do I find other articles and books that have cited it? on how to do this. One way to quickly track down these seminal works is to use a database like SAGE Navigator, a social sciences literature review tool. It is one of the products available via our SAGE Knowledge database.
• In the PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES databases, you can select literature review, systematic review, and meta analysis under the Methodology section in the advanced search to quickly locate these. See the FAQ: Where can I find a qualitative or quantitative study? for more information on how to find the Methodology section in these two databases.
• In CINAHL , you can select Systematic review under the Publication Type field in the advanced search. 
• In Web of Science , check the box beside Review under the Document Type heading in the “Refine Results” sidebar to the right of the list of search hits.
• If the database you are searching does not offer a way to filter your results by document type, publication type, or methodology in the advanced search, you can include these phrases (“literature reviews,” meta-analyses, or “systematic reviews”) in your search string.  For example, “video games” AND “literature reviews” could be a possible search that you could try.

Please give these suggestions a try and contact a librarian for additional assistance.

Content authored by: GS

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What is a gap analysis, and how can you use it to get closer to your goals?

Last updated

14 May 2023

Reviewed by

Organizations use gap analysis to analyze their performance and determine whether they’re meeting business objectives and using resources effectively. 

Gap analysis can aid management in creating an action plan that can assist the organization in figuring out how to fill in these performance gaps and improve business operations. 

While the process may appear complicated, it’s not as complex as it seems. When organizations do a gap analysis properly, they can move closer to their goals. 

• What are the types of gap analysis?

Regarding gap analysis, the "gap" refers to the space between a company's actual and desired outcomes. However, you can identify different types of gaps with a gap analysis.

Some of the more critical gaps include the following: 

A performance gap is also called a strategy gap, referring to the space between actual and desired performance.  

A profit gap is the difference between targeted profit and actual profit.  

A manpower gap is the difference between the exact number of personnel and the required personnel to complete a project. It can also mean the difference between the actual and desired workforce performance.  

• When to use a gap analysis?

While companies can use a gap analysis to study numerous business areas, the aim is to understand performance gaps. 

This ensures organizations create effective strategies to reduce gaps and achieve their goals.  

Organizations perform gap analysis at these levels:

The strategic level to compare the current output or condition of the business with industry standards

The operational level to compare the current state of the business' performance with goals and projections

• Gap analysis tools

Once you identify the gaps in your business, learn why they exist and how to fix them. 

Some gap analysis models you can use to complete this task include:

SWOT analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

This analysis allows companies to identify their internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. This ultimately enables entities to understand their situation and determine where they stand within the industry. 

The analysis can also help companies come up with plans and decision-making strategies. 

Fishbone diagram

The fishbone diagram, also called a cause-and-effect diagram (Ishikawa diagram), helps companies identify many possible causes for a problem or effect.

Companies can use it to structure team meetings to discuss how to solve these issues. This type of diagram is useful when examining an organization's current situation. 

Common categories that investigate an entity's current situation include:

Environment

Measurements

McKinsey 7S Framework

The McKinsey 7S Framework helps entities:

Better understand the gaps that may appear

Figure out areas they need to optimize to boost business performance

Determine how to align processes and departments during an acquisition or merger

Examine the results of future changes within an organization

The sevens in this process refer to two groups of essential interrelated parts of an organization: Hard and soft elements. 

The hard elements are tangible and controllable. It includes things like strategy, organizational structure, and daily task systems. 

In comparison, softer elements are intangible, uncontrollable elements. They include things like staffing, employee skills, company leadership style, and shared organizational values. 

Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model

This model identifies gaps based on the principle that an entity's performance results from four elements: 

Business culture 

Higher compatibility between these elements equals greater performance. 

The PEST analysis

PEST stands for political, economic, social, and technological. 

This analysis measures external factors that could impact a company's profitability. Typically, it’s more effective with larger businesses that are more likely to experience the effect of macro events. Businesses commonly use it together with SWOT analysis. 

• How to conduct a gap analysis

The following steps can help you perform a gap analysis and figure out how to meet your business goals:

Analyze your current state

Before you can devise a plan to reach your goals, you must choose an area of your business to focus on. Find out what your company's current state is in this area. This can help you understand where to apply a gap analysis model and what you want from it.  

For instance, if you want to enhance the efficiency of your current operations, a performance gap analysis may help. 

On the other hand, if you want to analyze staffing levels, a manpower gap analysis can provide detailed insight.

Identify the ideal future state

Next, determine the company's goals and how its future will look. To accomplish this, you’ll have to consider the company’s current state and where you want it to be within a reasonable timeframe. 

Ultimately, your goal should be an improvement over the current state, and it should be measurable so you’ll know when you reach it. 

One way to determine your ideal future state is to look at industry standards. From the track record of other companies, you’ll know this goal is possible once you’ve addressed business problems. 

Another method is to look at your company's historical data. For example, if your sales have been growing over 10% each year but suddenly drop, your goal may be to return these sales to 10%. 

Find the gap and evaluate solutions

When you define your current and desired states, you need to compare them to calculate the gap you’re trying to close. If a gap is small, you may only need minor tweaks to fix operations, or you may determine that significant operational changes are necessary. 

Regardless, this step will help you figure out the hurdles to overcome, the extent of these challenges, and how much time you need to complete these changes. 

Create and implement a plan to bridge the gap

Once you uncover why the gap exists, it’s time to determine the course of action to close it. Since you clarified the hurdles to overcome, you can prepare solutions for these issues. 

Some critical gap analysis tools that can turn your findings into actions include the SWOT analysis and fishbone diagram. 

The SWOT analysis can help you organize the problem areas and the recommendations you obtained to fix these issues.

The fishbone diagram allows you to map the root cause of each problem and develop solutions. 

• Benefits of gap analysis

A gap analysis can help companies in several ways, including allowing them to review current strategies and determine what is working and what’s still needed to achieve their objectives. 

Common benefits of this analysis include:

Identify weak points:  If your company is not performing as expected, a gap analysis can help your organization discover the root cause of the performance gaps.

Measure current resources : If an organization has a surplus of resources, a gap analysis can determine how to allocate resources to use them more efficiently.

Figure out potential plans : When organizations create a gap analysis, they can create possible action plans for their goals.

• Example of gap analysis

Gap analysis is a great tool if you’re looking for ways to improve your business. Here are some real-life examples of when companies perform gap analysis: 

Project management

When planning projects or reviewing different stages of project management, you can use gap analysis to uncover lagging areas. This can help you allocate resources effectively. 

Human resources

A gap analysis can help you with the hiring process if you're in human resources. It can reveal what’s lacking within your team, allowing you to figure out what you need in a new candidate. 

Product launches

Following a product launch , you can use a gap analysis to learn why sales didn’t meet company expectations.  

Customer satisfaction

To improve customer satisfaction , you can use a gap analysis to determine why there’s dissatisfaction and develop ways to serve customers better. 

Employee performance

As a team leader, you can perform a gap analysis to improve employee performance. The results can help you determine business best practices to boost workforce performance.

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What is Gap Analysis? Steps, Template, Examples

Appinio Research · 02.11.2023 · 34min read

Are you striving to bridge the divide between where your business currently stands and where you aspire it to be? Gap Analysis holds the key to unlocking your organization's full potential. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the intricacies of Gap Analysis, unraveling its significance, methodologies, and real-world applications.

Whether you're seeking to enhance performance, seize market opportunities, or fortify your competitive edge, this guide equips you with the tools and knowledge to navigate the path toward your desired future state.

What is Gap Analysis?

Gap Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to assess the difference, or "gap," between the current state of a business or organization and its desired state. It involves evaluating existing processes, performance, capabilities, and outcomes against predefined goals and objectives.

The goal of Gap Analysis is to identify areas where there is a discrepancy between the current state and the desired state, enabling organizations to make informed decisions and develop action plans to bridge those gaps.

Importance of Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis is crucial for several reasons:

• Strategic Alignment: It ensures that a business's strategies and objectives are in alignment with its current capabilities and resources. By identifying gaps, organizations can adjust their strategies to be more realistic and achievable.
• Decision-Making: Gap Analysis provides a data-driven foundation for decision-making. It helps organizations prioritize initiatives and allocate resources effectively based on identified gaps.
• Continuous Improvement: It fosters a culture of constant improvement by highlighting areas that need attention and enhancement. This promotes ongoing growth and development.
• Risk Mitigation: Gap Analysis helps identify potential risks and vulnerabilities within an organization. By addressing gaps, businesses can proactively mitigate risks before they escalate.
• Competitive Advantage: Understanding where a business stands compared to competitors is essential for maintaining a competitive edge. Gap Analysis helps organizations identify ways to outperform their rivals.
• Resource Optimization: It allows organizations to allocate resources efficiently, avoiding unnecessary expenditures in areas where there are no significant gaps.

Purpose and Goals of Gap Analysis

The primary purposes of Gap Analysis are as follows:

• Strategic Planning: Gap Analysis serves as a critical component of strategic planning by helping organizations set clear and achievable goals that are aligned with their capabilities and resources.
• Performance Improvement: It identifies areas where performance falls short of expectations and provides insights into how to enhance performance.
• Resource Allocation: Gap Analysis guides organizations in allocating resources effectively to address the most critical gaps and achieve strategic objectives.
• Risk Management: By identifying gaps, organizations can proactively address vulnerabilities and reduce the likelihood of unexpected issues arising.

The goals of Gap Analysis can vary depending on the specific context and objectives, but they typically include:

• Identifying Gaps: The primary goal is to identify and document gaps between the current state and the desired state in various aspects of the business, such as processes, performance, or capabilities.
• Setting Objectives: Gap Analysis helps establish clear and measurable objectives and goals that are realistic and attainable.
• Developing Action Plans: It facilitates the creation of action plans to bridge the identified gaps. These plans outline the steps, resources, and timelines needed for improvement.
• Monitoring Progress: Gap Analysis supports ongoing monitoring and measurement of progress toward closing the gaps, ensuring that initiatives remain on track.
• Optimizing Resource Allocation: It assists in optimizing the allocation of resources by directing investments to areas that will yield the greatest impact.

Benefits and Advantages of Conducting Gap Analysis

Conducting Gap Analysis offers numerous benefits and advantages for organizations:

• Informed Decision-Making: Gap Analysis provides data-driven insights that enable informed decision-making, helping organizations prioritize actions and investments.
• Strategic Focus: It helps businesses align their strategies with achievable goals and objectives, reducing the risk of pursuing unrealistic targets.
• Resource Efficiency: By pinpointing areas where resources can be most effectively allocated, Gap Analysis optimizes resource utilization, minimizing waste.
• Continuous Improvement: Gap Analysis fosters a culture of continuous improvement by identifying areas that require enhancement and providing a structured approach to achieving progress.
• Risk Mitigation: It helps organizations identify potential risks and vulnerabilities early, allowing for proactive risk management and mitigation.
• Competitive Advantage: Gap Analysis enables organizations to outperform competitors by addressing weaknesses and capitalizing on strengths.
• Enhanced Performance: By addressing identified gaps, organizations can improve their overall performance, customer satisfaction, and stakeholder value.
• Transparent Communication: Gap Analysis facilitates transparent communication within the organization and with external stakeholders, ensuring everyone understands the strategic direction.
• Measurable Results: It provides a basis for measuring the success and impact of improvement initiatives, ensuring that progress is quantifiable and measurable.

Overall, Gap Analysis is a valuable tool that empowers organizations to identify, address, and bridge gaps, leading to improved performance, strategic alignment, and sustainable growth.

Types of Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis can take on various forms, each tailored to address specific aspects of your business. Let's explore the four main types in detail:

Performance Gap Analysis

Performance Gap Analysis focuses on evaluating the performance of your business processes, teams, or individuals against predefined standards or benchmarks. This type of analysis helps you identify areas where your business is falling short of expectations or industry norms.

Example: Consider a manufacturing company that produces electronic devices. They set a benchmark of making 100 units per hour on their assembly line. After analyzing their actual production rate, they discover that they are only achieving 80 units per hour. This performance gap indicates inefficiencies in their assembly process.

Market Gap Analysis

Market Gap Analysis centers around understanding the gap between the demand for a product or service in the market and what your business currently offers. It helps you identify opportunities to meet unfulfilled customer needs.

Example: Imagine you run a coffee shop in a neighborhood where the majority of customers prefer specialty coffees. Your analysis reveals that you offer a limited range of specialty coffees compared to customer demand in your area. This market gap suggests an opportunity to expand your specialty coffee menu to cater to local preferences.

Competitive Gap Analysis

Competitive Gap Analysis involves comparing your business's performance, products, or services directly against those of your competitors. It helps you pinpoint where your business outperforms competitors and where it lags behind.

Example: Suppose you operate a retail clothing store, and you want to assess your competitiveness. After analyzing pricing, product quality, and customer service, you find that your prices are higher than those of your main competitors, but your product quality and customer service are superior. This competitive gap analysis suggests that you may need to reevaluate your pricing strategy while maintaining your focus on quality and service.

Product Gap Analysis

Product Gap Analysis focuses on evaluating the gap between your existing product or service offerings and what customers seek in the market. It helps you identify opportunities for product development or improvement.

Example: Let's say you own a software company that produces a project management tool.

Through product gap analysis, you discover that your competitors offer mobile app versions of their project management tools, but your product is only available as desktop software. This product gap indicates an opportunity to develop a mobile app to cater to the growing mobile-oriented market.

In summary, understanding the different types of Gap Analysis allows you to tailor your approach to the specific challenges or opportunities your business faces. Whether it's improving internal processes, addressing market demand, outperforming competitors, or enhancing your products or services, Gap Analysis provides a structured framework for decision-making and strategic planning.

How to Prepare for Gap Analysis?

Before diving into Gap Analysis, it's crucial to adequately prepare for the process. The success of your analysis depends on how well you set the stage. Here are the key steps in preparing for Gap Analysis:

1. Identify the Scope and Focus

Scope refers to the specific area of your business you intend to analyze. It could be a department, a process, or even the entire organization. Focus narrows down your analysis to particular aspects within that scope.

• Define Your Scope: Start by clearly defining the boundaries of your analysis. What aspect of your business do you want to examine? It could be marketing, sales, customer service, or any other area.
• Set Your Focus: Within your chosen scope, identify the specific elements or processes you want to analyze. For instance, if you're looking at the sales department, you might focus on lead generation, conversion rates, or customer retention.
• Align with Goals: Ensure that the scope and focus align with your overall business goals. Your analysis should directly contribute to achieving those objectives.

2. Gather Necessary Data and Information

Accurate and relevant data is the lifeblood of Gap Analysis. Gathering the right information is critical for making informed decisions.

• Data Sources: Identify the sources of data you'll need for your analysis. This may include internal sources like financial reports, customer feedback, and employee performance records, as well as external sources like market research and industry benchmarks.
• Data Quality: Ensure that the data you collect is accurate, up-to-date, and reliable. Inaccurate data can lead to misguided conclusions.
• Data Organization: Create a systematic process for collecting, organizing, and storing data. Consider using digital tools and databases to streamline this process.
• Data Accessibility: Make sure that team members who will be involved in the analysis can access the data they need easily and securely.

3. Assemble a Gap Analysis Team

Gap Analysis is not a one-person job; it requires a diverse team with various skills and perspectives. To build an effective Gap Analysis team:

• Skill Diversity: Select team members with a range of skills and expertise relevant to the scope of your analysis. For example, if you're analyzing customer service, include customer service representatives, data analysts, and process experts.
• Clear Roles: Define clear roles and responsibilities for each team member. Ensure that everyone understands their contributions to the analysis.
• Team Collaboration: Foster a collaborative environment where team members can freely share ideas, insights, and concerns. Effective communication is essential for success.
• Leadership: Appoint a team leader or project manager who can oversee the analysis process, keep the project on track, and make decisions when necessary.

4. Set Clear Objectives and Goals

Without clear objectives and goals, your Gap Analysis can quickly become aimless. Here's how to set clear goals for your analysis:

• Specificity: Make your objectives as specific as possible. Instead of a vague goal like "improve sales," aim for something like "increase monthly sales revenue by 15% within the next year."
• Measurability: Ensure that your goals are measurable. You should be able to track and quantify your progress. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) when possible.
• Relevance: Your objectives should directly relate to the scope and focus of your analysis. They should address the specific gaps you want to bridge.
• Timeframe: Set a realistic timeframe for achieving your objectives. This helps create a sense of urgency and keeps the analysis on schedule.

By effectively preparing for Gap Analysis, you lay a strong foundation for the rest of the process. Remember, the success of your analysis hinges on the clarity of your scope, the quality of your data, the synergy of your team, and the precision of your objectives. These preparatory steps ensure that your Gap Analysis is both insightful and actionable.

How to Conduct Gap Analysis?

With the preparatory work completed, it's time to delve into the core of Gap Analysis. We will guide you through the essential steps in conducting Gap Analysis effectively.

1. Data Collection and Analysis

Data is the backbone of any Gap Analysis. This phase involves gathering, organizing, and analyzing the data you've collected.

• Data Verification: Begin by verifying the accuracy and reliability of the data you've collected. Ensure that it's up-to-date and relevant to your analysis.
• Data Cleansing: Cleanse the data to remove duplicates, errors, or inconsistencies. This step is critical for ensuring your analysis is based on quality information.
• Data Organization: Organize the data in a structured manner, making it easier to work with. Consider using spreadsheets or data visualization tools to assist in this process.
• Data Analysis Tools: Utilize data analysis tools and techniques to extract insights from the data. This may involve statistical analysis , trend identification, or data visualization.
• Identifying Patterns: Look for patterns, trends, and anomalies in the data. These patterns can provide valuable insights into the current state of your business.

You can streamline your data collection and analysis processes with the assistance of advanced technology. Appinio , a cutting-edge research platform, offers robust tools for data gathering and analysis, helping you collect insights efficiently. With our platform, you can verify data accuracy, cleanse information, and organize it seamlessly. Additionally, Appinio's data analysis capabilities enable you to identify crucial patterns and trends that inform your Gap Analysis.

Take your data-driven decision-making to the next level. Book a demo now to explore how Appinio can elevate your Gap Analysis efforts and empower your business to bridge those critical gaps effectively!

Book a Demo

2. Identify Current State

Before you can bridge the gap, you must have a clear understanding of where you currently stand. This step involves assessing and documenting your business's current state.

• Process Mapping: Create process maps or flowcharts to visualize how critical processes operate within your business. This helps identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
• Performance Metrics: Evaluate relevant performance metrics in your chosen scope. For instance, if you're analyzing customer service, assess metrics like response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores.
• Stakeholder Interviews: Conduct interviews or surveys with key stakeholders to gather qualitative insights into the current state. Employees, customers, and suppliers can provide valuable perspectives.
• Strengths and Weaknesses: Identify the strengths and weaknesses within the scope of your analysis. Understanding these aspects is crucial for setting improvement goals.

3. Determine Desired State

Having a clear vision of where you want to be is essential for Gap Analysis. Define your desired state:

• Goal Setting: Clearly define the goals and objectives you aim to achieve through the Gap Analysis process. Ensure that these goals align with your overall business strategy.
• Benchmarking: If applicable, benchmark your desired state against industry standards or competitors' performance. This provides a reference point for your goals.
• Customer Expectations: Consider the expectations of your customers and stakeholders. What do they expect from your business, and how can you meet or exceed those expectations?
• Long-Term Vision: Think beyond immediate improvements. Consider your long-term vision for the business. What should it look like in the next three, five, or ten years?

4. Analyze the Gap

This is the heart of Gap Analysis, where you identify and quantify the gaps between your current and desired state.

• Quantification: Use metrics, KPIs, or scoring systems to quantify the gaps. This makes it easier to prioritize areas that need improvement.
• Root Cause Analysis : Investigate the root causes of the identified gaps. What factors or issues are contributing to the discrepancies between the current and desired states?
• Impact Assessment: Assess the potential impact of each gap on your business. Determine which gaps have the most significant consequences and should be addressed first.
• Risk Analysis: Consider the risks associated with each gap. What are the potential risks if you don't bridge these gaps? Understanding the risks can inform your decision-making.

By diligently following these steps in conducting Gap Analysis, you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of your current business state, a clear vision of where you want to go, and a quantified view of the gaps that need your attention. This analysis provides the foundation for making informed decisions and developing effective action plans to bridge those gaps.

Gap Analysis Tools and Techniques

To conduct effective Gap Analysis, you can leverage a range of tools and techniques. These methods provide structured approaches to gather insights, identify gaps, and make informed decisions. Let's explore these tools and techniques in detail.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis is a widely used tool for assessing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats associated with your business or a specific aspect of it. It helps you gain a holistic view of your current state and potential future directions.

• Strengths: These are the internal attributes and resources that give your business an advantage. They are what you do well and can capitalize on.
• Weaknesses: Weaknesses are internal factors that hinder your business's performance. Identifying weaknesses allows you to address areas in need of improvement.
• Opportunities: Opportunities are external factors or trends that your business can leverage to its advantage. Recognizing opportunities helps you prioritize strategic initiatives.
• Threats: Threats are external factors that can negatively impact your business. Being aware of threats allows you to develop mitigation strategies.

SWOT Analysis is a versatile tool that can be applied to various aspects of your business, from marketing and sales to operations and product development.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking involves comparing your business's performance, processes, or practices against those of industry leaders or competitors. It allows you to identify performance gaps and best practices that can be adopted to improve your own operations.

• Internal Benchmarking: This involves comparing different departments or teams within your organization to identify areas where one can learn from the other.
• Competitive Benchmarking: Here, you analyze how your business stacks up against direct competitors in terms of key performance metrics.
• Functional Benchmarking: Functional benchmarking compares specific business functions, such as customer service or supply chain management, with those of other organizations, even outside your industry.

Benchmarking provides valuable insights into where your business stands relative to others and highlights opportunities for improvement.

Root Cause Analysis

Root Cause Analysis is a technique used to identify the underlying causes of problems or gaps within your business. It goes beyond surface-level symptoms to uncover the fundamental reasons for issues.

• Cause-and-Effect Analysis: Also known as the Fishbone Diagram or Ishikawa Diagram, this technique helps you visualize the various factors that contribute to a problem or gap. It's particularly useful for exploring complex issues.
• 5 Whys Technique: This method involves asking "why" multiple times (usually five) to drill down to the root cause of a problem. It's a simple yet effective way to dig deeper into issues.
• Fault Tree Analysis: This technique is more structured and is used for complex problems, especially in high-risk industries like aerospace and nuclear power. It traces events back to their root causes.

Root Cause Analysis is essential for addressing issues at their source rather than just treating symptoms, leading to more effective and sustainable solutions.

Fishbone Diagrams

The Fishbone Diagram, also known as the Ishikawa Diagram or Cause-and-Effect Diagram, is a visual tool used to identify potential causes of a problem or gap. It helps you explore various factors that could contribute to an issue and discover their interrelationships.

• Categories of Causes: The diagram typically includes categories like People, Process, Equipment, Materials, Environment, and Management (the 6 M's). These categories serve as branches on the fishbone diagram.
• Identifying Causes: Under each category, you list potential causes or factors contributing to the problem. This brainstorming process encourages a comprehensive examination of the issue.
• Visual Representation: The diagram resembles a fish's skeleton, with the main problem at the "head" and the potential causes branching off like "bones."

These Gap Analysis tools and techniques provide structured approaches to gather data, analyze information, and make strategic decisions. Depending on the nature of your analysis and the complexity of the issues you're addressing, you can choose the most appropriate tool or combination of tools to support your Gap Analysis process.

Gap Analysis Template

A Gap Analysis template is a structured framework that provides a systematic approach to conducting Gap Analysis within your business. It serves as a roadmap, ensuring you cover all the necessary steps and elements during the analysis process.

Here, we'll provide you with a Gap Analysis template and tips on utilizing it effectively.

Components of a Gap Analysis Template

A well-designed Gap Analysis template typically includes the following components:

Scope and Focus

• Clearly define the scope of the analysis. What aspect of your business will you examine?
• Specify the focus within the chosen scope. Which specific elements or processes will you analyze?

Data Collection and Analysis

• Outline the sources of data and information required for the analysis.
• Provide guidance on how to gather, verify, and organize the data.
• Include sections for data analysis techniques and tools to be used.

Identifying Current State

• Define the methods for assessing the current state within the chosen scope.
• List key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to evaluate.
• Offer guidance on documenting strengths and weaknesses.

Determining Desired State

• Specify the criteria for setting clear objectives and goals.
• Explain how to align goals with the scope and focus of the analysis.
• Encourage the inclusion of long-term visions for the desired state.

Analyzing the Gap

• Provide guidance on quantifying gaps and discrepancies.
• Offer tools and techniques for identifying the root causes of gaps.
• Include sections for assessing the impact and potential risks associated with each gap.

Recommendations and Action Plan

• Outline the format for presenting recommendations to bridge the gaps.
• Encourage the development of a comprehensive action plan.
• Include sections for resource allocation, timelines, and responsibilities.

Monitoring and Adjustments

• Describe the process for tracking progress and measuring success.
• Explain how to make necessary adjustments to the action plan.
• Emphasize the importance of continuous assessment and feedback loops.

Benefits of Using a Gap Analysis Template

Utilizing a Gap Analysis template offers several benefits:

• Structured Approach: Ensures a systematic and organized analysis process from start to finish. and provides a clear framework that guides users through each step.
• Consistency: Promotes consistency in conducting Gap Analysis across different areas or departments within the organization and helps maintain a standardized approach to data collection and evaluation.
• Efficiency: Saves time by eliminating the need to create analysis guidelines from scratch and streamlines the documentation process, making it easier to communicate findings and recommendations.
• Clarity: Helps clarify the objectives and goals of the analysis and ensures that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the analysis process and its outcomes.
• Customization: Allows flexibility for tailoring the template to the specific needs and nuances of your business and enables the inclusion of industry-specific metrics and benchmarks.

Tips for Creating an Effective Gap Analysis Template

When creating a Gap Analysis template, consider the following tips:

• Collaborate: Involve team members and stakeholders in the template's development to ensure it aligns with your business's unique requirements.
• Simplicity: Keep the template straightforward and user-friendly. Avoid unnecessary complexity that might hinder its usability.
• Flexibility: Make the template adaptable to different types of Gap Analysis, whether it's performance, market, competitive, or product analysis.
• Documentation: Include sections for documenting assumptions, data sources, and references to maintain transparency and credibility.
• Training: Provide training and guidance on how to use the template effectively to ensure consistency in analysis processes.
• Version Control: Implement version control to track updates and revisions to the template over time.

By creating and utilizing a well-designed Gap Analysis template, you empower your organization to conduct thorough and consistent analyses, enabling informed decision-making and continuous improvement across various facets of your business.

How to Interpret and Report Gap Analysis Results?

After conducting a Gap Analysis, it's essential to interpret the results effectively and communicate them to relevant stakeholders. This section will guide you through the steps in analyzing and reporting Gap Analysis findings:

1. Present Gap Analysis Results

Showcasing your Gap Analysis results in a clear and compelling manner is crucial for decision-making. Consider the following when presenting your findings:

• Visual Aids: Utilize charts, graphs, and visuals to make complex data more accessible and understandable. Visual representations can help stakeholders grasp critical insights at a glance.
• Narrative Explanation: Accompany visuals with a narrative that explains the significance of the findings. Describe the current state, desired state, and the gaps identified.
• Key Highlights: Highlight the most critical gaps or issues that need immediate attention. Focus on those that have the most significant impact on your business goals.
• Benchmark Comparisons: If applicable, compare your findings to benchmarks or industry standards to provide context and emphasize the gaps.

2. Identify Priorities and Action Items

Not all gaps are created equal. Some may have a more substantial impact on your business than others. Here's how to identify priorities and action items:

• Impact Assessment: Assess the potential impact of each gap on your business's performance, goals, and objectives. Prioritize those with the most significant consequences.
• Urgency: Consider which gaps require immediate attention due to their urgency or potential to escalate if left unaddressed.
• Feasibility: Evaluate the feasibility of closing each gap. Some gaps may be more straightforward to address, while others may require significant resources or time.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Weigh the costs of closing each gap against the expected benefits. Focus on those gaps where the benefits outweigh the costs.

3. Create an Action Plan

Once you've identified priorities, it's time to develop a comprehensive action plan to bridge the gaps.

• Specific Goals: Clearly define the goals and objectives associated with each gap. Make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
• Tasks and Responsibilities: Break down the action plan into specific tasks and assign responsibilities to team members. Everyone should know their role in closing the gaps.
• Timelines: Establish realistic timelines for completing each task or milestone. Ensure that there are clear deadlines to keep the action plan on track.
• Resources: Identify the resources, including budget, personnel, and technology, required to implement the action plan successfully.

4. Communicate Findings to Stakeholders

Effective communication with stakeholders is essential to ensure alignment and support for your action plan:

• Stakeholder Engagement: Identify all relevant stakeholders, including executives, employees, investors, and customers, and engage them in the process.
• Transparency: Be transparent about the findings, priorities, and action plan. Provide stakeholders with a clear understanding of the rationale behind your decisions.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Establish feedback mechanisms that allow stakeholders to provide input and ask questions. Address concerns and adapt the action plan if needed.
• Regular Updates: Keep stakeholders informed of progress. Regularly update them on milestones achieved and any changes in the action plan.
• Celebrate Success: When you successfully bridge a gap, celebrate the achievement with your team and stakeholders. Recognizing success boosts morale and motivation.

Effectively interpreting Gap Analysis results and reporting them to stakeholders ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding the identified gaps and the plan to address them. This transparency and collaboration are essential for achieving the desired outcomes and fostering a culture of continuous improvement within your organization.

How to Implement Gap Analysis Recommendations?

Implementing the recommendations generated from Gap Analysis is the critical phase that turns insights into action and results. Here, we'll explore in-depth the steps involved in effectively implementing Gap Analysis recommendations:

1. Allocate Resources

To bridge the identified gaps successfully, you must allocate the necessary resources, including budget, personnel, and technology.

• Resource Identification: Based on the action plan developed during Gap Analysis, identify the specific resources required for each task or initiative. This may include financial resources, additional personnel, or access to particular technology or tools.
• Resource Allocation: Allocate resources efficiently to ensure each task has what it needs to succeed. Prioritize resources based on the urgency and impact of each gap.
• Budget Planning: Develop a budget that outlines the costs associated with closing the gaps. Consider both direct and indirect costs, and ensure that your financial plan aligns with your business's financial capabilities.
• Personnel Deployment: Assign responsibilities to team members or departments, making sure that individuals with the necessary skills and expertise are leading each initiative.
• Technology and Tools: If your action plan involves adopting new technology or tools, ensure that you have the proper systems in place and provide adequate training to your staff.

Effective resource allocation ensures that you have the means to execute your action plan efficiently and achieve the desired outcomes.

2. Monitor Progress

Once you've allocated resources and initiated the action plan, it's crucial to continuously monitor progress to stay on track.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Define and track KPIs specific to each initiative. KPIs should be measurable and aligned with the goals set during Gap Analysis.
• Regular Reporting: Establish a reporting cadence to track progress and share updates with stakeholders. This can be weekly, monthly, or as needed, based on the complexity of the initiatives.
• Performance Metrics: Continuously assess the performance of your action plan against the predetermined goals and objectives. Are you achieving the desired results?
• Issue Identification: Be vigilant in identifying any roadblocks, obstacles, or issues that may impede progress. Address these challenges promptly to keep the plan on course.
• Feedback Loop: Encourage feedback from team members involved in implementing the recommendations. Their insights can help fine-tune the approach and overcome hurdles.

Monitoring progress ensures that you're moving in the right direction and allows you to make timely adjustments when needed.

3. Make Necessary Adjustments

Flexibility is vital when implementing Gap Analysis recommendations. Be prepared to make adjustments along the way.

• Continuous Assessment: Regularly review the effectiveness of your action plan. Assess whether it's achieving the desired outcomes and closing the identified gaps.
• Feedback Integration: Act on feedback from stakeholders and team members. If they provide insights or suggestions for improvement, incorporate them into the plan as appropriate.
• Adaptation: Be open to adapting your approach if circumstances change. External factors, market dynamics, or unexpected events may necessitate adjustments.
• Resource Reallocation: If certain initiatives are not progressing as expected, consider reallocating resources to more promising areas or revising the action plan.

Making necessary adjustments ensures you remain agile and responsive, increasing the likelihood of successfully closing the gaps.

4. Measure Success and Impact

Ultimately, the success of your Gap Analysis recommendations should be measured by their impact on your business.

• Goal Achievement: Evaluate whether you've met the specific goals and objectives outlined in your action plan. Assess the degree to which the gaps have been closed.
• Performance Improvement: Measure the improvements in key performance metrics that were targeted during the Gap Analysis process. Compare current performance to the baseline.
• Stakeholder Feedback: Solicit feedback from stakeholders to gauge their satisfaction and perception of the changes made as a result of the recommendations.
• Long-Term Impact: Assess the sustainability of the improvements over time. Are the changes enduring, or do they require ongoing efforts to maintain?

By measuring success and impact, you not only validate the effectiveness of your Gap Analysis recommendations but also gain valuable insights into the long-term benefits and areas where further adjustments may be necessary.

Gap Analysis Examples

To gain a deeper understanding of how Gap Analysis is applied in various business scenarios, let's explore a range of real-world examples. These examples will illustrate how Gap Analysis can be a versatile tool for identifying and addressing gaps in different aspects of your organization.

Scenario: A retail company wants to improve its inventory management processes to reduce carrying costs and stockouts.

Gap Analysis:

• Current State: The company conducts an analysis of its existing inventory management practices and identifies inefficiencies, such as overstocked items and frequent stockouts.
• Desired State: They set a goal to maintain optimal inventory levels by implementing just-in-time inventory management.
• Gap: The gap analysis reveals a significant discrepancy between the current state and the desired state in terms of inventory management efficiency.

Recommendations: The company's action plan includes investing in inventory management software, providing employee training, and optimizing supplier relationships to bridge the gap.

Scenario: An e-commerce startup is looking to expand its product offerings and wants to identify untapped market segments .

• Current State: The startup analyzes its existing customer base and product offerings, noting gaps in its product range.
• Desired State: They aim to target specific demographics and offer products tailored to those segments.
• Gap: The analysis reveals that there is a significant gap between their current product offerings and the preferences of their target market segments.

Recommendations: The action plan includes market research to understand customer preferences, product development to fill the gaps, and marketing strategies to reach the new target segments .

Competitive with Gap Analysis

Scenario: A software company wants to enhance its competitiveness in the market.

• Current State: The company assesses its product features, pricing, and customer support in comparison to key competitors.
• Desired State: They aim to offer a more feature-rich product at a competitive price point with superior customer support.
• Gap: The analysis reveals that their product features and customer support fall short compared to their competitors.

Recommendations: The action plan includes product development to add missing features , pricing adjustments, and investing in customer service training and resources.

Scenario: An automobile manufacturer wants to introduce a new electric vehicle (EV) to the market.

• Current State: The company evaluates its existing product lineup and identifies the gap in EV offerings.
• Desired State: They set a goal to develop and launch an electric vehicle to meet the growing market demand for eco-friendly options.
• Gap: The analysis shows a gap between the current product lineup, which lacks an EV, and market demand for such vehicles.

Recommendations: The action plan includes research and development for the EV, securing the necessary supply chain for batteries, and marketing strategies to promote the new product.

These Gap Analysis examples demonstrate how businesses can apply this versatile tool to various scenarios, including performance improvement, market expansion, competitive positioning, and product development. By conducting Gap Analysis in these contexts, organizations can make informed decisions, set clear objectives, and develop action plans to bridge the identified gaps and achieve their strategic goals.

Gap Analysis is a powerful compass that guides your business from where it is to where it wants to be. By identifying gaps, setting clear goals, and taking action, you can steer your organization toward success. Remember, the journey of improvement is ongoing, and Gap Analysis is your trusty navigator on this path.

So, use these insights, tools, and techniques to continually assess, adapt, and thrive. As you bridge the gaps and achieve your objectives, you'll not only enhance performance but also foster a culture of progress and innovation within your organization. With Gap Analysis as your strategic ally, the possibilities for growth are limitless.

How to Conduct Gap Analysis in Minutes?

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The Complete Guide to Gap Analysis

By Joe Weller | October 17, 2018 (updated September 17, 2023)

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A gap analysis is a tool that can help businesses identify where they aren’t living up to their potential, and then use that information to plan ways for improvement. Learn how gap analyses work, find examples, and follow our step-by-step guide to perform one for your company.

What Can a Gap Analysis Do for You?

A gap analysis measures actual against expected results to identify suboptimal or missing strategies, processes, technologies, or skills. Use the results of a gap analysis to recommend actions that your company should take to meet its goals.

By comparing the current state with the target state, companies, business units, or teams can determine what they need to work on to make their performance or results better and get on the right path quicker. Companies can also use the gap analysis process to elevate individual or team performance, and look at attributes such as task competency, performance level, and productivity. Other names for the process include need-gap analysis, needs analysis, and needs assessment.

As opposed to a risk assessment , which tend to be forward-looking, a gap analysis examines the current state. ANSI (American National Standards Institute), ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security), and RIMS (Risk and Insurance Management Society) standards say that risk assessment includes the identification, analysis, and evaluation of uncertainties to objectives and outcomes of an organization.

You can also look at a gap analysis as a means of comparing performance to potential. In other words, how far did a person, group, or product fall from their capacity? Did the resources fall short of the needs?

Gap analysis is a process that, when applied to other business processes, becomes a reporting process used for improvement. When applied to manufacturing or production, a gap analysis can help balance the allotment and integration of resources from their current allocation level closer to an optimal level. Those resources can be time, money, material or human resources.

Concrete vs. Conceptual

You can perform a concrete gap analysis thats looks at the real world, or a conceptual one that examines hypothetical scenarios. While you can use the same template in both exercises, when performing a conceptual gap analysis, you’ll need to make assumptions about which parameters to use. Conversely, use real facts and data for a concrete analysis.

Strategic vs. Operational

A gap analysis can be strategic and focus on the overall organization and the planning and execution at that level, or it can be operational and focus on the day-to-day work of a team or department. Since both methods are based on real-world situations, there’s no need to make assumptions.

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Gap Analysis Examples

Many business departments use the gap analysis process, including accounting, sales, customer service, and human resources. Below you’ll find a few specific examples of scenarios in which a company can use a gap analysis:

New Product Launch : After a company launches a new product, they might do a gap analysis to determine why sales didn’t meet forecasts.

Productivity : When a factory’s productivity is not meeting expectations, targeted customer needs, or the set of business requirements that were laid out a gap analysis can help determine what process to fix.

Supply Management : If a hospital finds itself running short of supplies on a regular basis, they could perform a gap analysis to identify the reason why.

Sales Performance : A manufacturer can look at the sales performance of their catalog of products to make sure they are producing the right mix, and use the result to maximize their production–possibility frontier.

Individual Assessment : A team leader at an accounting firm can have each member perform a gap analysis on themselves, and use those results not only to find targets to improve each person’s performance, but also to draw out the best practices that everyone can adopt.

Product Evaluation : A software company might perform a gap analysis of their product to ensure that all features and functions outlined in the business requirements are present and working as expected.

Why Do Businesses Perform a Gap Analysis?

Businesses perform gap analyses to identify the difference between where they are with where they want to be. You can use a gap analysis to evaluate those differences, identify the causes, and inform the steps needed to bridge the gap.

In project management, the difference between the way a company is performing a task or activity and the ideal way it could be performed is called CΔV (pronounced “C delta-V”), or the current gap vision . The difference between a target for a metric and the actual metric performance is called AΔT (pronounced “A delta-T”), or the actual gap target .

Below are some reasons that a company might perform a gap analysis:

Benchmarking : Comparing results against external criteria. A computer company may want to see where they stand against industry performance criteria, or a candy company may want to compare their reputation with their competitors.

Portfolio Analysis : Examining their product portfolio to look for new sales opportunities, a company can use a gap analysis to identify new products to sell. In the opposite direction, they can also look for existing products that are not selling well, use a gap analysis to find out why, then promote them (e.g. feature them more promentilty in marketing or put them on sale), change them to better meet customer needs, or remove them from their portfolio.

Profits : If a forecast profit percentage isn’t reached, a company can use a gap analysis to determine what went wrong, and whether it was in planning or execution. Was the organization paying higher-than-expected expenses for materials, or having to lower prices due to unexpected competition?

Processes : A gap analysis can help reveal the shortcomings of processes, so that the real outcomes match the expected outcomes. A shipping firm could examine their AP process to see why so many of their vendors are not getting paid on time, or examine their billing processes to see why many of their suppliers don’t get their invoices until after the due date.

Performance Indicators : A gap analysis can also be applied to key performance indicators like new customer acquisition, average order amount, or return on investment (ROI) . A mobile carrier could look for the reasons that caused them to miss their customer acquisition goal, or a seafood company could seek the reasons they didn’t process as much salmon as expected.

Usage Gaps : A usage gap is the difference between current market size for a product or service, and the potential market size. A gap analysis in this area can help an organization see why they are not reaching the full potential. Is a company's reputation pushing down sales? Or did management misread the demand for a product?

What Is a Market Gap Analysis?

A market gap analysis is a method of researching sales opportunities where the demand outweighs the supply. An organization can use these analyses, which can be performed internally or externally, to make decisions based on market facts, rather than opinion.

A market gap analysis differs from market research in that it’s proactive rather than reactive. Business to consumer (B2C) companies take advantage of this process often. The market they might investigate can be geographic (there’s nobody selling anything like our product on the west coast), product based (there was a time when no one was selling mobile phone cases that doubled as wallets), service based (there may a lot of dogs in a city, but not many dog walkers or other pet care businesses), or look for a way to better utilize existing resources (think of Uber launching Uber Eats).

What Is a Strategic Gap Analysis?

A strategic gap analysis compares a company’s strategy to that of its competitors. A business can then adopt the top-performing aspects of its competitors’ approaches and integrate these aspects within the most successful parts of its own existing strategy.

When to Perform a Gap Analysis

A company can perform a gap analysis at any time, but be thoughtful about timing to maximize its effectiveness. Conduct gap analyses on a regular basis, before a period of strategic planning, or whenever a department or venture is underperforming.

A gap analysis is often a key part of strategic planning , which is a process that helps an organization define a strategy to accomplish its goals. By looking for issues via a gap analysis, the business can adjust its strategy to better fit the situation, or update the company's processes to align with the strategy.

When an organization is looking for problems with their performance, a gap analysis can be a key tool in identifying where things are falling short. For example, if a company wants to start a marketing campaign to improve their reputation or apply for a loan, they could perform a market gap analysis to help determine their impact on the their local economy and use that data as part of their campaign or loan application. Similarly, when a company is preparing for an audit or other oversight activities, a gap analysis is a proactive way of showing the auditors which regulations the company is complying with, and that it has a plan to meet the rest.

Benefits and Challenges of a Gap Analysis

Gap analyses benefit organizations in many ways, such as identifying growth opportunities and prioritizing resources. They can also be difficult and time consuming, and require in-depth knowledge of the department they’re targeting. We’ve outlined the top benefits and challenges below:

Insight into areas that need improvement, such as efficiency, products, profitability, processes, customer satisfaction, performance, participation, and competitive advantage

Ensuring that project requirements have been met

Finding areas of weakness and shortcomings to address

Uncovering differences in perception vs. reality

Providing information to guide decision makers, which can lead to better decisions

Finding the best places to deploy resources and focus energy

Prioritization of needs

If performed well, the results of a gap analysis are clear and easy to understand

While valuable, gap analyses are not perfect. Some challenges related to the gap analysis process include the following:

Successful completion depends on knowledge and persistence of the people involved in the process.

While the process may expose some causes, if it doesn't go deep enough, the proposed resolutions will not address the real root cause or can miss the complexities behind them. For example, when evaluating sales performance, an analysis might conclude that sales reps are not offering a new product enough, but may not find out why. Are they not familiar enough with the product? Are customers unwilling to change from an exsisiitng product? Or does the new product not work as advertised?

The analysis can be inaccurate, as the ground is constantly shifting (especially in large organizations or in fast-moving industries)

How to Perform a Gap Analysis

Performing a gap analysis is straightforward. First, identify the area to evaluate and state its ideal outcome. Next, analyze its current state. Compare that with the ideal results, and quantify the difference. Finally, make a plan to bridge the gap.

In larger organizations, the gap analysis process is generally the responsibility of business analysts, project managers, process improvement teams, or management. But with a little training, and a well-designed gap analysis template , anyone can work through the process.

Some organizations may already have a process outlined that you can follow. However, the basic steps for performing a gap analysis are explained below.

Identify the area to be analyzed and identify the goals to be accomplished . For example, you may want to figure out why your factory is not meeting its output target. The goal will be to discover the causes that contributed to targets not being met, and recommend how to remove the causes.

Establish the ideal future state . If everything worked according to plan, where would you be?

Analyze the current state . What causes contributed to the targets being missed? For example, were the workers not trained well enough? Was the production floor short-staffed? Were required materials consistnelty available? Did the layout of the production floor slow things down?

Compare the current state with the ideal state . How far from the target was actual production? For example, did you expect to produce 1,000 units per hour, but only managed to produce 800 units per hour?

Describe the gap and quantify the difference . In the unit production example (described in step 4), there would be a 20 percent shortfall. After researching the potential causes, outline the contribution of each to the gap. In this example, we may find that insufficient training caused 5 percent of the gap, staffing problems caused 7 percent, material shortages caused 2 percent, and inefficient layout of the factory floor caused 14 percent. Companies can use other ratings systems to quantify the difference that can be as basic as simple terminology like good, fair, and poor, to something more detailed like a 1-50 scale.

Summarize the recommendations and create plan to bridge the gaps . Decide what needs to be changed and determine what steps need to be taken to fix things. In this example, the team performing the analysis may decide the layout issue is the easiest to tackle and will have the greatest impact, so they might recommend ways to address it. Then they could work with the supply chain and staffing teams to create recommendations for those issues as well. They would summarize their ideas and present it to management to begin planning the improvements.

Gap Analysis Best Practices

When performing a gap analysis, be thoughtful about which areas, items, and processes to analyze, and which recommendations to adopt. Understand that the changes you make may affect others. Ensure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Back up your recommendations with supporting data from your analysis to increase the likelihood that your company will adopt them. Use charts to illustrate your data and make it easier to understand. It’s also imperative to consider cost, resources, and consequences when recommending problems to address and solutions. Remember, if a solution is out of reach, the company is unlikely to adopt it.

Assign an owner to each part of the process to ensure that you complete each step. By digging deep into the proposed solution, you’ll find it might not be easy to achieve. Look beyond the obvious to see if there are other possible solutions. 

Learn more about how creating SMART goals can ensure that your gap analysis is as effective as possible.

Frameworks for Gap Analysis

You can use a framework for your gap analysis, like the Nadler-Tushman Model and the PESTEL framework, to simplify the process. Use each framework listed below as an organizing principle for both the causes you discover and your proposed solutions.

McKinsey 7Ss Framework The McKinsey framework has seven categories: strategy, structure, systems, shared values, skills, style, and staff. The first three are considered “hard” and the rest are considered “soft.”

An example of a misalignment might be if a production line requires 20 people to operate at full capacity, but the graveyard shift only has 15 people available. In this case, there's a misalignment between systems and staff.

Nadler-Tushman Congruence Framework This model breaks a company's’ performance into four areas: work, people, structure, and culture. Note each area’s strengths and weaknesses, and then compare them to the other areas. The goal is to find out if the work being done in each area supports the others. For example, if a compliance group is performing their tasks at a high level and finds areas where the company is not following certain laws and regulations, but the company’s organization doesn't have any way to implement these changes, the people and structure are not congruent.

SWOT Framework SWOT is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. While some experts see gap analysis and SWOT analysis as separate tools, SWOT is a useful tool for organizing both the the causes and the recommendations. However, the threat portion veers into risk assessment, and as mentioned previously, a gap analysis is not a risk assessment.

Download a free SWOT analysis template to get started with this framework.

PESTEL Framework PESTEL is another acronym and stands for political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal. While it can be a standalone analysis, a company can also use it as a gap analysis framework.

Fishbone Framework The fishbone diagram is a tool created by Kaoru Ishikawa, a Japanese quality control expert. The method is designed to identify problem causes and divide them into categories, similar to the other frameworks above. While the image above illustrates six categories that are used in manufacturing, there are other sets of categories that other business areas use. A couple of these are outlined below.

The 8 Ps of Product Marketing

Physical evidence

Performance

The 4 Ss of Service

Surroundings

What Is a Gap Analysis for a Bank?

In the banking sector, a gap analysis evaluates risk by looking at the balance of assets and liabilities. The analysis determines if there is a negative gap (when liabilities exceed assets) or a positive gap (when assets exceed liabilities).

The banking gap analysis doesn’t take potential interest rate changes into account, and generally focuses on near-future time periods (one month out, three months out), so it is a limited tool.

What Is a Gap Analysis in the Pharmaceutical Industry?

A gap analysis (also known as validation gap analysis ) in the pharmaceutical industry looks at the difference between regulatory requirements affecting a company, and the practices and processes that a company currently uses.

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How to do a gap analysis

Table of Contents

Performing a gap analysis.

A gap analysis is a systematic process used to evaluate and identify the differences, or "gaps," between the current state of an organization or system and its desired future state. It provides a structured approach to assess performance, capabilities, and resources in order to determine areas that require improvement or development. By highlighting the gaps, organizations can strategically plan and allocate resources to bridge those differences and achieve their goals effectively.

Understanding the purpose of a gap analysis

Before undertaking a gap analysis , it’s important to understand the purpose of one and how it can help shed light on areas of improvement. A gap analysis serves multiple purposes, each contributing to the overall objective of bridging the gap between the current state and the desired future state of an organization. The key purposes of a gap analysis include:

Identifying the current state and desired future state

One of the primary purposes of a gap analysis is to clearly define the current state of an organization or system and contrast it with the desired future state. This step involves assessing the existing processes, capabilities, and performance metrics, as well as articulating the specific goals, objectives, and outcomes the organization seeks to achieve.

Determining performance gaps

A gap analysis helps in determining the performance gaps faced by an organization. It involves evaluating various factors such as efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, or any other relevant performance criteria. By identifying these gaps, organizations gain insights into areas that need improvement or enhancement.

Setting goals and objectives

Another purpose of a gap analysis is to set clear and actionable goals and objectives. Based on the identified gaps, organizations can define specific targets to bridge the differences between the current state and the desired future state. These goals and objectives should be realistic, measurable, and aligned with the organization's strategic direction.

Preparing for a gap analysis

Before conducting a gap analysis, thorough preparation is essential. This involves considering key factors and gathering relevant information to ensure the analysis is focused and comprehensive. The following steps are crucial for preparing for a gap analysis:

Defining the scope and focus areas

Defining the scope of the gap analysis is crucial to ensure that the analysis remains focused and manageable. This involves identifying the specific areas or processes within the organization that will be assessed during the analysis. By setting clear boundaries, organizations can allocate resources efficiently and concentrate their efforts on the most critical areas.

Gathering relevant data and information

To conduct an effective gap analysis, organizations need to gather relevant data and information. This includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data related to performance metrics, customer feedback, employee surveys, process documentation, industry benchmarks, and any other relevant sources. By gathering comprehensive and reliable data, organizations can ensure a more accurate and insightful analysis.

Conducting the gap analysis

Once the preparation phase is complete, organizations can proceed with conducting the actual gap analysis. This involves a structured approach to assess the current state, identify the gaps, and prioritize areas for improvement. Miro’s gap analysis template can help guide you through this process.

1. Identify performance criteria

The first step is to identify the performance criteria against which the current state will be evaluated. These criteria should align with the organization's goals and objectives, and they can include factors such as financial performance, customer satisfaction, product quality, employee productivity, or any other relevant measures.

2. Assess current performance

Next, organizations assess their current performance based on the identified criteria. This involves analyzing the available data and information to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the organization's processes, systems, or practices. The goal is to gain a clear picture of the existing state and establish a baseline for comparison.

3. Identify desired performance

After assessing the current state, organizations define the desired performance levels they aim to achieve. This entails setting specific targets or benchmarks that align with the organization's strategic objectives. The desired performance represents the future state towards which the organization will strive.

4. Analyze the gaps

Once everything is laid out, begin comparing the current performance with the desired performance to identify the gaps that exist. This analysis highlights the areas where the organization falls short of its desired future state and helps prioritize improvement efforts.

5. Prioritize gaps

Once the gaps have been identified, it is crucial to prioritize them based on their significance and potential impact on the organization. This prioritization allows organizations to focus their resources and efforts on addressing the most critical gaps first, ensuring that improvements yield the maximum benefit.

Analyzing and interpreting gap analysis results

After completing the gap analysis, organizations need to analyze and interpret the results to derive actionable insights. The following aspects are crucial in this phase:

Identifying root causes of performance gaps

Analyzing the results of a gap analysis helps organizations identify the root causes of performance gaps. By examining the underlying factors contributing to the gaps, organizations can develop targeted strategies to address them effectively.

Understanding the impact of gaps on organizational goals

Understanding the impact of identified gaps on the organization's goals and objectives is vital. This analysis helps organizations recognize how the gaps may hinder progress or affect the achievement of desired outcomes. It enables decision-makers to prioritize actions and allocate resources accordingly.

Identifying trends and patterns

Analyzing the results of the gap analysis can reveal trends and patterns across various areas of the organization. Identifying these trends provides valuable insights into common challenges or opportunities and helps in developing comprehensive strategies to address them.

Developing strategies to address gaps

Once the gap analysis results are analyzed and interpreted, organizations can develop strategies to address the identified gaps. The following steps are involved in this phase:

Setting realistic and measurable goals

Based on the identified gaps and analysis, organizations should set realistic and measurable goals to address those gaps. These goals should be specific, achievable, and time-bound, allowing for effective monitoring and evaluation of progress. Use the SMART goals template to guide you through this process.

Identifying possible solutions and initiatives

Organizations need to identify possible solutions and initiatives to bridge the gaps between the current state and the desired future state. This may involve implementing process improvements, adopting new technologies, providing training and development programs, revising policies, or any other relevant actions that address the identified gaps.

Evaluating risks and constraints

When developing strategies, it is crucial to evaluate potential risks and constraints that may impact the implementation of the chosen initiatives. This assessment helps organizations anticipate challenges and develop mitigation strategies to ensure successful gap closure.

By following these steps, organizations can effectively address the gaps identified through the gap analysis and work towards achieving their desired future state.

Use Miro to perform an effective gap analysis

By collecting all the information included in your gap analysis in one shared space, conducting a gap analysis becomes an effective and engaging collaborative effort. Use Miro to visually map out the current and desired states, identify gaps, and develop strategies to bridge them effectively. Sign up for free and unlock the power of Miro to drive meaningful improvements and achieve your organizational goals.

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• How to use a gap analysis to achieve bu ...

How to use a gap analysis to achieve business goals

A gap analysis is the process of comparing your actual business performance with your desired performance to see what’s missing. You can use these analyses to create company strategies and identify possible shortcomings in your business. Learn how a gap analysis can help fortify your business goals and the four steps to perform your own.

Here's a scenario: your team is about to start their strategic planning initiatives for the next year, but they don't really know where to start. What do you do next?

A gap analysis (also known as a needs analysis) is the process of comparing your current business performance with your desired performance. It helps you identify the "gap" between where your business currently stands versus where you want your business to be. In short, you’re looking for what’s missing.

What is a gap analysis?

A gap analysis (also known as a needs analysis) is the process of comparing your current business performance with your desired performance. The "gap" in a gap analysis is where your business currently stands versus where you want your business to be. 

Creating a gap analysis can help your business in a few ways. Here's how:

Brainstorm strategies . Creating a gap analysis can help strategic teams figure out potential action plans they can use to hit their goals. 

Identify weak points . If your business didn't perform as expected, using a gap analysis can help your team figure out the root cause of certain performance gaps. 

Benefits of using a gap analysis

Creating a gap analysis is a way to review your current strategies to see what’s working, and what’s still needed. Performing one can help your business in a number of ways, including:

Identifying weak points . If your business didn't perform as expected, you can use a gap analysis to help your team figure out the root cause of performance gaps. 

Measuring current resources . If your team has a surplus of resources at the end of the year, a gap analysis can help identify specifically how resources were allocated so they can be used more efficiently in the future.

When to perform a gap analysis

A gap analysis is a useful project management tool to help you identify how to get from point A to point B. While a gap analysis can be used at any time, you can get the most out of your analysis when you apply it strategically to a specific project or initiative. Here are a few scenarios where using a gap analysis can help you gather the contextual data you need to improve your business.

During strategic planning

If your team is looking to create a strategic growth plan, using a gap analysis early ‌in the strategic planning process can help give your team a good starting point. A gap analysis provides data-driven guidance on how your team goes from their current state to a specific end goal. For example, if you’re planning next quarter’s strategy, you can use a gap analysis to review what you achieved in the current quarter. Compare that to the goals you had originally set and you’ll be able to identify opportunities to improve in the coming months.

When you encounter performance issues

If your team is unexpectedly underperforming, a gap analysis can be a useful tool to identify any shortcomings. Once you identify the root cause of the gap in your current situation, your team can improve processes to fix the issue without interrupting production. For example, a project manager at an assembly line may notice that production is not meeting expectations. After completing a gap analysis, they find the root cause to be an issue with some machinery. Now they know exactly what to fix to improve production.

When stakeholders need additional context

If your team is compiling business information for investors or for other business requirements, a gap analysis can be an extremely helpful tool. A gap analysis is useful in this situation because it provides more contextual information than just hard numbers. If management is worried that your team is underperforming for whatever reason, a gap analysis can quell any worries with a detailed plan of how your team is going to close the gap. 

Gap analysis examples

The best time to use a gap analysis is when you’re looking for ways to improve, or you’ve realized something isn’t working quite as expected. In practical, real-life examples, here’s what that might look like:

Software development: Gap analyses can show you missing items in your software, helping you to potentially catch errors before you go to market.

Project management : Use gap analyses during the project planning or review stages of project management to show you the areas that aren’t up to speed with the rest of your project. Then, you can make requests for and allocate resources to that work as needed.

Human resources: If you’re on an HR team, you can use a gap analysis during the hiring processes to show you what’s lacking on a team, which in turn, you can look for in a new candidate. 

Team leads : As a lead, you’re often looking at the big picture problems. So sometimes, details slip through the cracks that can cause delays or issues down the line. A gap analysis can help you identify when you may have overlooked something, and it might be able to catch them before they create a bigger problem.

Competitive research: Competitive analyses are important tools to boost customer satisfaction. One way to perform the necessary competitive research is through a gap analysis, where you look at the market gap for your industry and strategize ways that your business can fill it.

The 4 steps of a gap analysis

While it may seem complex, using the gap analysis process is not as complicated as it seems. Try this four-step process to create a gap analysis for your team.

​1. Define your business goals

In order to compare current performance to desired performance, you first need to define what your ideal future state looks like, or, in other words, set goals. Any goal setting methodology works. If you don’t already use one, try using objectives and key results (OKRs) or key performance indicators (KPIs) to create targeted, specific metrics and business goals . Regardless of which goal type you use, make sure your objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. The goals you're setting here define how you’ll measure performance and represent the desired state you want for your business.

2. Benchmark your current business performance

Use goals, historical data, and past gap analyses to benchmark your current business performance , processes, or workflows , and set the standard for how you work. 

At the same time, evaluate your current processes with a business process analysis (BPA). If you're aiming to make process improvements as part of your strategy, looking at the current state of your business process is important. This can help you identify which process improvement methodology your team should use to reach the desired target state.

3. Analyze gap data

Remember that the “gap” in a gap analysis is the difference between where your business currently stands and where you want your business to be. Now that you understand the difference, it’s time to hypothesize different strategies and tactics your team will need to close that gap. 

The next step in this process is to ensure your goals are actually achievable, and not too far out of your team’s reach. You don’t want to set a goal so high that it feels impossible. In the same vein, it’s important to ensure that your team is able to complete their goal in the set time period. If you make changes to your current performance strategy, will your team still be able to achieve the goals you set based on the desired time frame?

It's during this step when you meet with your stakeholders to brainstorm strategic planning initiatives to hit your goals. 

4. Compile a detailed report

Once you've solidified all of your numbers and business goals, create an action plan that clearly dictates how your team plans to close the gap. It's important to use both quantitative data, like the benchmark data you compiled in step two, in addition to qualitative data, such as current processes and past process improvement strategies. 

What is the difference between a gap analysis and a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a type of gap analysis that’s commonly used in project management to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for a business. Usually, people complete a SWOT analysis via a 2x2 matrix.

Once this matrix is filled, use it to identify gaps that come to light as your team brainstorms each quadrant of the matrix. 

Other common gap analysis tools

Mckinsey 7s model.

Developed by Robert H. Waterman and Tom Peters, the McKinsey 7S framework is a management model that is often used for organization analysis. The idea is that an organization needs seven elements that are all aligned and reinforcing one another. If one part of the seven elements is off, it can affect the entire business. 

The seven S's in this model stand for:

Structure : How your business is organized. This could mean how activities are divided and how teams communicate with each other. 

Strategy : The hard set of plans that your team uses to move the business forward. 

Systems : How performance is measured, along with procedures the team uses to do business.

Skills : The competencies your team members provide for your business. 

Style : The behavior patterns of certain groups within your business.

Staff : The individuals that work for you. This also refers to their characteristics and ways the company nurtures and develops their team.

Shared values : Values are the core principles that define how your company approaches work. 

You can use this model by testing the relationship between each of the seven S’s. When you change something in strategy, how does that affect systems? Performing a gap analysis here can give you concrete answers to how each of these facets of your organization relate to each other. 

Nadler-Tushman congruence model

The Nadler-Tushman congruence model is a business management tool that identifies the root cause of performance issues. It was developed by organizational theorists David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman in the early 1980s. 

The idea of the Nadler-Tushman model is that there are four main elements to a business and they each have unique relationships to one another. 

Those four main elements are:

Work : All of the individual tasks that make up your business's performance. There are two different perspectives on how to look at work: what is done and how that work is processed. 

People : The interaction of individuals during work. Some examples of this include a manager and their direct report, or a team lead and a contractor.  

Organizational structure : How your business organizes itself, like how work is delegated , what teams work on what, and how processes are built. 

Culture : This is how your team implements group norms , best practices, ideals, and shared values throughout your company.

The Nadler-Tushman model then pairs each of these elements off into six different combinations, so teams can analyze how their business is performing. Those six pairs look like this:

Work and people : This looks at which employees are doing what work. Are the right people completing the right tasks?

Work and structure : This is how your team develops processes to complete work. Is there enough structure and organization that clearly dictates what work needs to be completed?

Work and culture : This focuses on the environment that's created. Does your company culture promote habits that are beneficial to performance?

People and structure : This identifies the organizational structure of your team. Is your team organized in such a way that individuals can produce their best work?

People and culture : This focuses on the attitudes of employees. Are your employees working in a culture that is productive for them? Are they able to identify resources to help themselves be successful at work? 

Culture and structure : This pair relates to how culture and company organization may affect one another. Does the organization of your business compete with the company culture , or help it? 

Similar to the McKinsey 7s model, when you pair off each of the elements of the Nadler-Tushman model, you can see how those two relate to each other and how changing one facet can affect the other.

Craft gap analyses with a work management tool

Gap analyses work best when shared with stakeholders in a convenient and organized manner. A work management tool like Asana can help your team organize information and streamline communication with stakeholders, so everybody is on the same page. Learn more about how you can use Asana to assist with work management. 

Related resources

Unmanaged business goals don’t work. Here’s what does.

How Asana uses work management to drive product development

How Asana uses work management to streamline project intake processes

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

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How to Conduct a Gap Analysis: Definition, Steps & Example

Table of Contents

What is gap analysis, how to conduct a gap analysis in 4 steps, gap analysis template, gap analysis example, types of gap analysis, gap analysis tools.

Plan all you want. But once that project or business plan is being executed, you’ll need a gap analysis to assess whether you’re meeting the requirements or you could be in trouble. As its name suggests, the gap analysis is a method to look at where you are and where you want to be. Between those two points is the gap you have to close. A gap analysis can be used in projects or for an organization to meet its targets.

It’s important to analyze whether your progress is at a pace to meet your objective or if you need to make adjustments to bridge that performance gap. Let’s learn more about how gap analysis can help your business.

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Use this free Gap Analysis Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Gap analysis is a formal study of how a business or project is currently progressing and where it plans to go in the future. There are various perspectives that can be analyzed, from business direction to business processes, from information technology to product management.

When talking about management, gap analysis is a means to compare a current state with a future state in terms of performance. Factors that impact performance include resource planning , capital investment, technology, etc. What a gap analysis does is identify the gaps between the optimized allocation and integration of resources to the current allocation level.

It’s by doing such measurements that a pathway towards improvements can be cleared. To do this involves determining, documenting and improving the difference between requirements and capabilities at the current time. Real-time data is going to improve how you understand the progress of your project.

ProjectManager is cloud-based work and project management software that helps with gap analysis by using live project data. Our real-time dashboard requires no setup and automatically collects live data, crunches the numbers and displays six project metrics in colorful graphs and charts. Get started with your gap analysis today for free with ProjectManager.

When you’re doing a gap analysis, you’re really asking yourself a few questions: Where are we now, where do we wish we were and how are we going to get there? So, it’s not merely a picture but a roadmap to improve production.

There are four basic steps that you take when conducting a gap analysis. They can be boiled down to the following.

1. Identify Current State

The first step is knowing where you are at the present time. So, be clear as to what is being described and what is not. This will avoid scope creep and keep your analysis focused. Then comes collecting contextual information. That means collecting qualitative information, such as what are your team processes and methodologies.

Also, quantitative information is important, meaning anything that can be counted and measured. That includes everything you’re currently doing. Yes, it’s a lot of data to gather, but the more you gather, the sharper the picture of your current state.

2. Identity Where You Want to Go

The point of a gap analysis is to figure out where you want to go and if you’re getting there. This is the desired state, future target or stretch goal. To get there you need to know about your current state and what a reasonable timeframe is to get from there to the goal you’ve set for yourself.

But first, you must mark that point in the future that you’re aiming for. Think about where that should be, what’s not happening that needs to happen, what could be happening that hasn’t before or has changed, and what needs to happen to get there.

3. Identify the Gaps 

You know where you are and where you want to go, the space between those two marks is the gap you must bridge to reach your target. This is when you want to figure out why there is a gap. To do that you need to be very specific about the gap. Also, dig deeper and determine why the gap happened. Ask yourself questions that are applicable to your business and answer them honestly.

4. Bridge the Gap

You’ve done the due diligence, and now it’s time to act. You know why there’s a gap, so you must now devise a way to close it. To do this, you can follow the guidelines of basing all improvements on the information you discovered when you identified the gap. Also, consider the cost of implementation for each solution that you come up with; you might not have the capital or capacity to achieve it. Finally, figure out the date at which the gap will be closed. If you don’t have a deadline, it will get overlooked or ignored.

After doing all the work, don’t neglect the follow-through. That is, follow up on the improvements you’re making by doing a gap analysis. If you don’t, then you’re doomed to repeat them. Also, it’s important not to try and close too many gaps at once. If you put too much stress on any organization, it’s going to break.

Manage the process with our free gap analysis template for Excel . It will help you meet the business targets that have been set for your project and streamline that process. You can add the current item stage and the future item state. Then use our dropdown menu to note the gap percentage. There are even action steps, assignments and statuses. But other templates fill out those steps.

Let’s examine gap analysis by creating a hypothetical gap analysis example. For instance, let’s say Company X has developed Widget and has gone to market and it wants to do a gap analysis on the deviations from its sales objects of this new product launch and make the required improvements.

• First, they have to gather market data and do customer surveys to discern what the problem is that prevents Company X from selling the number of Widgets they forecasted.
• Next, comes the analysis of that data and the current state of the sales problems.
• From there, Company X will figure out the future state it hopes to reach in terms of Widget sales.
• With these two points mapped out, Company X can now calculate the gap percentage.
• This information will drive the action steps necessary for the company to achieve its target, which might include adding to its sales force, further investment in marketing or even changes to the product.
• Once the action plan is set up, Company X will implement and monitor its progress as it bridges the identified gap.

What gap analysis is doing is providing a way to measure the investment in time, money and human resources that are needed to achieve an outcome. There are a number of different gaps and outcomes that gap analysis can target.

• Gap analysis can be used to classify how well a product meets its targeted need.
• Gap analysis can also help identify gaps in the market. It can compare the forecast profits to the desired profits and reveal a planning gap.
• Gap analysis can be used to analyze a usage gap. The usage gap is the gap between the total potential for the market and the actual use at the present time. This includes data, such as market use and existing use. Existing use measures the consumer use for the full market. It comes from doing in-depth marketing research, and sometimes data from government or industry studies.
• Gap analysis can also target a product gap. The product gap is the part of a market that excludes you, for whatever reason. This exclusion can occur because the product that you offer lacks certain features that are required by a customer base, or maybe certain customers just don’t align with your company’s mission statement or general policy.

There are gap analysis tools that can help a project manager identify the gap between the current state of the project and its future goals and objectives. These tools will also help to make clear the required tasks that are necessary to close that gap.

One such tool is a SWOT analysis , which is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. By using a SWOT analysis both quantitatively and qualitatively, you can determine internal and external threats to the project.

Fishbone Diagram

Another tool is the fishbone diagram , which is also called a cause and effect diagram. It is a way to visualize and categorize the potential causes of a problem. Then you can go about identifying its root causes. It’s a helpful tool when brainstorming to keep the conversation focused.

McKinsey 7-S Framework

The McKinsey 7-S Framework can be used to improve performance, examine effects of future change, align departments and processes and determine how best to implement a proposed strategy. It can be applied to teams or a project by looking at the seven interdependent factors of the tool.

PEST Analysis

One more tool is the PEST analysis , which is another acronym that stands for political, economic, social and technological. This allows one to make a framework of macro-environmental factors for the purpose of designing effective environmental strategies, which would apply to projects that are applicable.

More Free Templates For Better Gap Analysis

Gap analysis requires collecting and analyzing data. But that’s only the start. Next, you have to create a plan in order to act on what you’ve learned and then monitor the progress of that plan to make sure you’re meeting your milestones. Project management software can do all this and more but if you’re not ready to take that leap then you can use these free templates for gap analysis project management.

Action Items Template

The action items you sketched out in the gap analysis template can be fully realized in this free action items template for Excel. It provides the who, what and when for the plan, like a to-do list but more robust. You can list all the action items, assign them to your team, set the priority to help organize what gets done when add directions and even show the status of the work. But for greater detail on progress and performance, there’s our next free template.

Project Dashboard Template

You’re going to want to monitor your action plan as you execute it. Our free project dashboard template for Excel can help you track time on tasks, cost and workload. Unlike with project management software, though, you’re going to have to do all the inputting yourself, but it’s worth the effort to help stay on schedule. This free template can also be used to gather data on your gap analysis, so we’ve come full circle.

Progress Report Template

Don’t forget to keep your stakeholders updated on your progress in closing the gap. Use our free progress report template for Word. It’s a document that captures where you are in the project to update stakeholders and manage their expectations. You get a section in which to summarize the project scope, schedule, cost and any risks. Then you can dig down deeper into individual tasks and their status.

How ProjectManager Helps With Gap Analysis

ProjectManager is a cloud-based work and project management software that can help you close the gap in your gap analysis. Our tool organizes your action plan into tasks on a timeline that can be assigned and monitored while reporting back to stakeholders on the progress of your objective to meet that gap target.

Gantt Charts for In-Depth Planning

Use our interactive Gantt chart to map your plan on a visual timeline that links dependent tasks to avoid bottlenecks later in the project. Gantt charts are essential project management tools that set milestones and much more. But unlike other Gantts, ours can filter for the critical path without any complex calculations and then set a baseline to see planned effort against your actual effort once the project is executed. That helps you stay on schedule.

Multiple Views to Execute Work How You Want

Once the project is in the hands of your team they might not want to use a planning-intensive tool, such as the Gantt. Our software has multiple project views that share data in real time so teams can work how they want. Robust task lists show everything from priority to status while the visual workflow of a kanban board fosters collaboration on sprints and allows teams to manage their backlog.

Report on Progress in Minutes

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Research: How to Close the Gender Gap in Startup Financing

• Malin Malmström,
• Barbara Burkhard,
• Charlotta Sirén,
• Dean Shepherd,
• Joakim Wincent

Three ways policymakers, financiers, and other stakeholders can mitigate gender bias in entrepreneurial funding.

A global analysis of previous research over the last three decades shows that women entrepreneurs face a higher rate of business loan denials and increased interest rates in loan decisions made by commercial bankers. Interestingly, the data also reveals that the formal and informal standing of women in a particular society can provide clues to some of the true hurdles to positive change. This article reviews these hurdles, and offers three recommendations for change.

Gender disparities persist in entrepreneurship and statistics reveal the severity of the issue. Globally, only one in three businesses is owned by women . In 2019, the share of startups with at least one female founding member was a mere 20% .

• MM Malin Malmström is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Luleå University of Technology, and a director of the research center Sustainable Finance Lab in Sweden.
• BB Barbara Burkhard is a postdoctoral researcher of entrepreneurship at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.Gallen.
• CS Charlotta Sirén is an associate professor of management at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.Gallen.
• DS Dean Shepherd is a professor of entrepreneurship, management, and organization at The Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame.
• JW Joakim Wincent is a professor of entrepreneurship and management at the Hanken School of Economics and the Global Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of St.Gallen.

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What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Résumés to U.S. Jobs

Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference.

By Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz

A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for jobs using made-up résumés with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.

On Monday, they released the names of the companies . On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants.

Yet this practice varied significantly by firm and industry. One-fifth of the companies — many of them retailers or car dealers — were responsible for nearly half of the gap in callbacks to white and Black applicants.

Two companies favored white applicants over Black applicants significantly more than others. They were AutoNation, a used car retailer, which contacted presumed white applicants 43 percent more often, and Genuine Parts Company, which sells auto parts including under the NAPA brand, and called presumed white candidates 33 percent more often.

In a statement, Heather Ross, a spokeswoman for Genuine Parts, said, “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so.” AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.

Companies With the Largest and Smallest Racial Contact Gaps

Of the 97 companies in the experiment, two stood out as contacting presumed white job applicants significantly more often than presumed Black ones. At 14 companies, there was little or no difference in how often they called back the presumed white or Black applicants.

Source: Patrick Kline, Evan K. Rose and Christopher R. Walters

Known as an audit study , the experiment was the largest of its kind in the United States: The researchers sent 80,000 résumés to 10,000 jobs from 2019 to 2021. The results demonstrate how entrenched employment discrimination is in parts of the U.S. labor market — and the extent to which Black workers start behind in certain industries.

“I am not in the least bit surprised,” said Daiquiri Steele, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who previously worked for the Department of Labor on employment discrimination. “If you’re having trouble breaking in, the biggest issue is the ripple effect it has. It affects your wages and the economy of your community going forward.”

Some companies showed no difference in how they treated applications from people assumed to be white or Black. Their human resources practices — and one policy in particular (more on that later) — offer guidance for how companies can avoid biased decisions in the hiring process.

A lack of racial bias was more common in certain industries: food stores, including Kroger; food products, including Mondelez; freight and transport, including FedEx and Ryder; and wholesale, including Sysco and McLane Company.

“We want to bring people’s attention not only to the fact that racism is real, sexism is real, some are discriminating, but also that it’s possible to do better, and there’s something to be learned from those that have been doing a good job,” said Patrick Kline, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study with Evan K. Rose at the University of Chicago and Christopher R. Walters at Berkeley.

The researchers first published details of their experiment in 2021, but without naming the companies. The new paper, which is set to run in the American Economic Review, names the companies and explains the methodology developed to group them by their performance, while accounting for statistical noise.

Sample Résumés From the Experiment

Fictitious résumés sent to large U.S. companies revealed a preference, on average, for candidates whose names suggested that they were white.

To assign names, the researchers started with a prior list that had been assembled using Massachusetts birth certificates from 1974 to 1979. They then supplemented this list with names found in a database of speeding tickets issued in North Carolina between 2006 and 2018, classifying a name as “distinctive” if more than 90 percent of people with that name were of a particular race.

The study includes 97 firms. The jobs the researchers applied to were entry level, not requiring a college degree or substantial work experience. In addition to race and gender, the researchers tested other characteristics protected by law , like age and sexual orientation.

They sent up to 1,000 applications to each company, applying for as many as 125 jobs per company in locations nationwide, to try to uncover patterns in companies’ operations versus isolated instances. Then they tracked whether the employer contacted the applicant within 30 days.

A bias against Black names

Companies requiring lots of interaction with customers, like sales and retail, particularly in the auto sector, were most likely to show a preference for applicants presumed to be white. This was true even when applying for positions at those firms that didn’t involve customer interaction, suggesting that discriminatory practices were baked in to corporate culture or H.R. practices, the researchers said.

Still, there were exceptions — some of the companies exhibiting the least bias were retailers, like Lowe’s and Target.

The study may underestimate the rate of discrimination against Black applicants in the labor market as a whole because it tested large companies, which tend to discriminate less, said Lincoln Quillian, a sociologist at Northwestern who analyzes audit studies. It did not include names intended to represent Latino or Asian American applicants, but other research suggests that they are also contacted less than white applicants, though they face less discrimination than Black applicants.

The experiment ended in 2021, and some of the companies involved might have changed their practices since. Still, a review of all available audit studies found that discrimination against Black applicants had not changed in three decades. After the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, such discrimination was found to have disappeared among certain employers, but the researchers behind that study said the effect was most likely short-lived.

Gender, age and L.G.B.T.Q. status

On average, companies did not treat male and female applicants differently. This aligns with other research showing that gender discrimination against women is rare in entry-level jobs, and starts later in careers.

However, when companies did favor men (especially in manufacturing) or women (mostly at apparel stores), the biases were much larger than for race. Builders FirstSource contacted presumed male applicants more than twice as often as female ones. Ascena, which owns brands like Ann Taylor, contacted women 66 percent more than men.

Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The consequences of being female differed by race. The differences were small, but being female was a slight benefit for white applicants, and a slight penalty for Black applicants.

The researchers also tested several other characteristics protected by law, with a smaller number of résumés. They found there was a small penalty for being over 40.

Overall, they found no penalty for using nonbinary pronouns. Being gay, as indicated by including membership in an L.G.B.T.Q. club on the résumé, resulted in a slight penalty for white applicants, but benefited Black applicants — although the effect was small, when this was on their résumés, the racial penalty disappeared.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination is illegal even if it’s unintentional . Yet in the real world, it is difficult for job applicants to know why they did not hear back from a company.

“These practices are particularly challenging to address because applicants often do not know whether they are being discriminated against in the hiring process,” Brandalyn Bickner, a spokeswoman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in a statement. (It has seen the data and spoken with the researchers, though it could not use an academic study as the basis for an investigation, she said.)

What companies can do to reduce discrimination

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found.

But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation.

The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s calls came from fewer individual phone numbers, suggesting that they were originating from a central office, there tended to be less bias . When they came from individual hiring managers at local stores or warehouses, there was more. These messages often sounded frantic and informal, asking if an applicant could start the next day, for example.

“That’s when implicit biases kick in,” Professor Kline said. A more formalized hiring process helps overcome this, he said: “Just thinking about things, which steps to take, having to run something by someone for approval, can be quite important in mitigating bias.”

At Sysco, a wholesale restaurant food distributor, which showed no racial bias in the study, a centralized recruitment team reviews résumés and decides whom to call. “Consistency in how we review candidates, with a focus on the requirements of the position, is key,” said Ron Phillips, Sysco’s chief human resources officer. “It lessens the opportunity for personal viewpoints to rise in the process.”

Another important factor is diversity among the people hiring, said Paula Hubbard, the chief human resources officer at McLane Company. It procures, stores and delivers products for large chains like Walmart, and showed no racial bias in the study. Around 40 percent of the company’s recruiters are people of color, and 60 percent are women.

Diversifying the pool of people who apply also helps, H.R. officials said. McLane goes to events for women in trucking and puts up billboards in Spanish.

So does hiring based on skills, versus degrees . While McLane used to require a college degree for many roles, it changed that practice after determining that specific skills mattered more for warehousing or driving jobs. “We now do that for all our jobs: Is there truly a degree required?” Ms. Hubbard said. “Why? Does it make sense? Is experience enough?”

Hilton, another company that showed no racial bias in the study, also stopped requiring degrees for many jobs, in 2018.

Another factor associated with less bias in hiring, the new study found, was more regulatory scrutiny — like at federal contractors, or companies with more Labor Department citations.

Finally, more profitable companies were less biased, in line with a long-held economics theory by the Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker that discrimination is bad for business. Economists said that could be because the more profitable companies benefit from a more diverse set of employees. Or it could be an indication that they had more efficient business processes, in H.R. and elsewhere.

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. More about Claire Cain Miller

Josh Katz is a graphics editor for The Upshot, where he covers a range of topics involving politics, policy and culture. He is the author of “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk,” a visual exploration of American regional dialects. More about Josh Katz

From The Upshot: What the Data Says

Analysis that explains politics, policy and everyday life..

Employment Discrimination: Researchers sent 80,000 fake résumés to some of the largest companies in the United States. They found that some discriminated against Black applicants much more than others .

Pandemic School Closures: ​A variety of data about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 has accumulated since the start of the pandemic. Here is what we learned from it .

Affirmative Action: The Supreme Court effectively ended race-based preferences in admissions. But will selective schools still be able to achieve diverse student bodies? Here is how they might try .

N.Y.C. Neighborhoods: We asked New Yorkers to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them . The result, while imperfect, is an extremely detailed map of the city .

Dialect Quiz:  What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer these questions to find out .