Before introducing the concepts related to gap analysis, first think about what is an organization? What are the goals and strategies of the organization?

  Organization is a form of cooperation between people. Any organization, from a football club to a Fortune 500 multinational company, exists based on the same philosophy, the organization's aspirations. The vision may be to make more profit by selling more products, or it may be to build an "armada" to win more trophies. Organizational goals describe in more detail the specific tasks that the organization hopes to accomplish under a certain vision. An organization's strategy is the sum of all the decisions and means used to define and achieve the organization's goals. In order to achieve goals and implement strategies, organizations need to carry out "planning and implementation" through specific activities, namely "P" and "D" in PDCA. But whether the implementation really meets the target requirements, what gaps still exist, and how to improve? It is necessary to carry out gap analysis, namely "C" and "A" in PDCA - inspection and improvement.

  Gap analysis, also known as gap analysis and difference analysis, refers to the comparison and analysis of the actual status of the organization and the strategic expectations in the process of strategy implementation to evaluate and revise the strategy. which is:

   Gap = what the organization "should have" - "is"

Specific to the ISO20000 certification, the goal is relatively clear, that is, to pass the ISO20000 certification, so it can be defined = ISO20000 certification gap - ISO20000 standard definition requirements - the current situation of the organization's IT service management system The experience of a large number of IT service management practices shows that from the construction, definition, From the improvement, improvement and ISO20000 certification of the IT service management system, all IT service management practices are closely related to the maturity of the organization itself. Therefore, from a certain perspective, certification gap analysis can also be understood as "maturity assessment + improvement plan formulation".

   Organizations can usually assess their own maturity with the help of a well-known maturity model in the IT industry, and then formulate plans for improvement after confirming their maturity. Of course, in addition to the professional methodology of the industry, maturity assessment can also adopt some other methods of self-evaluation and health check. The improvement plan is more concerned about the internal situation and characteristics of the organization.

In ISO20000 certification, gap analysis is the second stage of ISO20000 standard certification practice, that is, by evaluating the gap between the actual situation of the organization's process system and the ISO20000 standard terms, to formulate an improvement plan framework and improvement topics, and lay the foundation for the next stage of process system establishment. Good foundation. As described in the previous chapter, part of the assessment and research work has already been started in the pre-certification preparation stage, the difference is that the work in the gap analysis stage is more closely integrated with the standard itself, and more professional analysis methods and tools are used. At the same time, in the gap analysis stage, the organization can appropriately draw on the experience of the consulting company to provide reference suggestions from the perspective of a third party.

   All in all, it is more appropriate to describe the gap assessment and analysis work of certification practice as "see the food and eat, and tailor the clothes".