What's Involved in a Performance Gap Assessment?

Is your company looking for a way to improve? Do you want to be more competitive in the marketplace? Is your organization moving through a significant transition and you’re not sure if you have all the bases covered?

There are a lot of moving parts within an organization to make the day-to-day work happen and it’s easy to lose sight of the larger strategic picture.

The one thing that is holding most companies back and that's their performance gap – the disconnect between what they are trying to achieve with strategy and the reality of the work that is actually being done.

A performance gap assessment can help identify areas where your company has deficiencies and missed opportunities, so you can work on improving those disconnects and inefficiencies. This article will address what a performance gap assessment entails and how it can benefit your organization.

What is a Gap Analysis?

A gap assessment is a process that enables you to identify where your organization needs improvement. This information can be used for many purposes, such as making sure you are providing the best possible service to your customers and staff, identifying areas of opportunity in which you should pursue growth opportunities, or pinpointing which aspects of your product or service need improvement.

A gap assessment will help you understand what is working well with your company, what could be improved on, and how to improve it. The most important thing about a gap assessment is that it provides insight into the current state of an organization so that changes can be implemented more effectively.

What Can a Gap Assessment Achieve?

A Gap Assessment is an analysis that can point out any gaps or weaknesses that exist within an organization's processes and procedures. This type of analysis looks at both tangible and intangible aspects of the business such as customer service, team collaboration, marketing strategy, etc.

A successful gap analysis can:

  • Identify problem areas within an organization

  • Provide insight into key drivers of success

  • Offer recommendations for improvement.

The insights gained through this process are invaluable when creating an action plan for change. With these insights at hand, organizations are able to focus on being proactive rather than reactive in their approach to operations and growth.

How Do We Perform a Gap Assessment?

A gap analysis is a method of determining the difference between what someone wants and what they have. So naturally, your management team will want to undertake a detailed assessment of the organization’s original goals and how successful they’ve been in accomplishing those goals.

Here are a few quick steps to help you perform your first gap assessment:

  1. Look at where your organization is right now.

  2. Identify where you want to actually be with your organization.

  3. Observe the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

  4. Identify the reasons for the gap (this is where having a master strategist can help).

  5. Come up with a plan for improvements to close the gap.

Once you’ve accomplished these steps, it’s time for implementation. Here’s what to do next:

  1. Identify the goals, measures, and projects for closing the gap.

  2. Create a framework for accomplishing the goals you’ve set forth.

  3. Implement your plan, track your progress and make adjustments as necessary.

  4. Continue to implement, track and adjust at regular intervals to ensure long-term success.

Forward progress relies on the incremental work that gets done over time. Tracking your efforts and using metrics to measure them can help you decide whether or not you’re taking the right actions in pursuit of your goal.

If tracking reveals that your strategy isn’t moving forward as quickly as planned, then take some time to reassess what projects need to be tackled next. You may find that one project was blocking another from proceeding at its optimal pace, or perhaps there are other factors outside of your control impacting how well things are going. Either way, knowing where weaknesses exist will allow you to start tackling those issues with more targeted solutions

Is Your Organization Performing as Expected?

If you’re looking for someone to help your organization grow, contact us today. We don't believe in a one-size-fits-all service.

Our goal is to find solutions that fit the needs of your business and meet the budget you have available. When we work with clients, our primary focus is on providing the results they need within their budgets. Let's chat about how we can get started today.