How Gap Analysis Adds Value to Your Business

Having just spent six months on an assignment in London, I have become very well acquainted with the 'Mind the Gap' tube announcement. The apparent design flaw of potentially lethal gaps between tube and platform that the announcement warns against highlights an important lesson for us all. Let me explain.

You may wonder why the train and platform designers did not get their act together so there are no gaps to avoid. If only the problem was that simple.

One of the problems lies in the fact that the trains are straight and some of the older platforms are curved as they had to be built under the existing roads. Rumour has it that the gap at Bank is so large because the tunnel diggers had to swerve around the Bank of England vaults! Hence gaps between the train and platform are inevitable.

Nevertheless, with the use of the latest technology and no restriction on budget, this problem could be solved and the gaps removed. But would this create other problems? Think of the cost and disruption as new tunnels and trains are built. What would the real benefit of doing all this be? Addressing the gap will not make the tubes run faster or allow more passengers to travel on a train. Therefore the best course of action for Transport for London is to simply identify where the gaps occur and alert people to the potential dangers (risk management).

Mind the Interaction

So by now you may be asking the question, what is Paul getting at? The answer is simply that many enterprises are analogous to the London Underground. The trains are the business operation of the organisation and the platforms, tunnels and track the IT infrastructure. And the gaps? Well they can appear at any point the business operation interacts with the IT infrastructure.

Unlike the London Underground, enterprises have to operate in a fast moving (!) world of business and technological change. Consequentially your gaps are constantly changing and are influenced by internal and external forces. Therefore it is essential you maintain a clear picture of both your business and technical architecture and more importantly how they interact together.

Unfortunately, in my experience organisations are relatively bad at getting these architectures formally documented. Of course I might just have had some bad experiences (never queue behind me at a supermarket as I always choose the slowest queue). Not documenting these architectures adds significant risk and pain to any project. You need to know where you are to be able to get to where you want to go. Or to identify if diligent risk management rather than a major project is a better solution.

Formalising Your Enterprise Architecture

Now don't get worried it's not necessarily a massive undertaking to formalise your enterprise architecture. As always the maxim 'Think big, start small' applies here.

You don't need to understand every aspect of your organisation in minute detail, but having a thin architectural slice across your enterprise detailing where all your major systems, processes, information and people interact is an excellent starting point. From here you can delve deeper into those areas where gaps are discovered or where you think improvement can help your business.

Add Genuine Value To Your Business

An important point to remember is that the exercise is not an academic one; its aim is to enable you to add genuine value to your business. Some examples of gaps that might be found during this architecture discovery exercise could be as follows:

a local database used within a process is not updated from the master database in a timely fashion
numerous Excel spreadsheets are being used by your employees to provide better presentation of information than provided by one of your main applications
information is not available when required
some re-keying of information between systems is required

Now whilst these gaps are understood by the people within the processes, what happens when they leave or move on? The unknown is dangerous but what is even more dangerous is ignoring the unknown - sooner or later it will make itself known to you, and in the worse case scenario this will be through its impact on your customers.

Road Map for Future Transformation

Whilst formalising your enterprise architecture may initially appear to be an exercise solely in documentation, it can become an essential and invaluable component in the analysis and design of any change within your business and provide a continuous roadmap for future developments and improvements. To fulfil this role the enterprise architecture must be updated and maintained regularly, so it doesn't become a merely a historical picture of your organisation at a particular point.

For this to happen, there must be high-level board sponsorship and an identifiable group of people who own and are responsible for ensuring the correctness of the enterprise architecture. This group of people should include:

business architects/analysts,
technical architects,
process owners and
any other key stakeholders

This group should meet quarterly to review, approve plans and ensure gaps have not appeared within the architecture. Without this type of commitment our recommendation would be not to start the exercise. But if the commitment is present, the enterprise architecture will become another key component in the successful growth of your organisation.

Ask the Experts

The challenges your organisation faces are often more apparent than the possible solutions. At Oakleigh Consulting we are always happy to discuss options you can consider based on our substantial experience in change management and technology.

A simple phone conversation may be enough. Alternatively, we offer an initial meeting free and without obligation that many clients have found invaluable in identifying, prioritising and scoping their options.

If you have any questions about the subjects covered in this white paper or you would like to find out more about how Oakleigh Consulting could help your organisation, please contact us on 0161 835 4100 or email us.

Copyright

You may publish, quote or reproduce any white papers on this website on the condition that Oakleigh Consulting Ltd is notified, properly credited (and linked to) as the source, including our URL: www.oakleigh.co.uk.

EMAIL THIS PAGE

Close this box

To:

Recipient email:

From:

Your name::

Your email:

Your message:

JCapture
Please enter the characters above:

This action will generate an email to the person above recommending this article. Your email address, and the email address of the person you are sending this article to, are not logged by our system.