This four-day course focuses on the gap analysis activity described in the ITIL® Continual Service Improvement volume. One of the ways that an organization can begin an adoption of ITIL best practices is through a gap analysis. A gap analysis compares the current state of an organization to the ITIL best practices and clearly demonstrates what the organization is doing that matches or exceeds best practice guidance, what the organization is doing that falls short of best practice, and produces a report indicating short, medium and long-term next steps. Additionally, healthy organizations regularly conduct gap analyses to understand how they are progressing and to quickly identify potential areas of improvement. This course demonstrates how an organization can conduct and create a gap analysis on its own, and how individuals can develop the skills necessary to perform a gap analysis.
ITIL® is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.
By the end of this course, participants will have the leadership toolkit to shape and steer GenAI portfolios across their organization.
Strategic Application
Course introduction and overview
- Accountability, boundaries and consistency
- Cost-effectiveness and quality
- Stages of the service lifecycle
- Services
- The service portfolio
- Processes and functions
- A brief discussion on the processes defined by ITIL
- Roles and responsibilities
- Exercise 1: Understanding the basic service management concepts
- Purpose and objectives of continual service improvement
- The continual service improvement approach
- The continual service improvement register
- Critical success factors and key performance indicators for continual service improvement
- Metrics and measurement for continual service improvement
- Exercise 2: Understanding continual service improvement
- The Gap Analysis Activity as described in the ITIL Continual Service Improvement book
- Where a Gap analysis fits into the continual service improvement approach
- A practical Gap analysis methodology
- Comparing the current state to the desired state
- Audit of intent
- Audit of action
- Identifying where the organization is meeting or exceeding best practice
- Identifying where the organization is falling short of best practice
- Describing specific improvement actions
- Creating the initial continual service improvement register
- Exercise 3: Understanding the Gap analysis activity
- Phase I: Planning
- Phase 2: Discover and review background information
- Phase 3: Conduct stakeholder interviews
- Phase 4: Draft Gap analysis
- Phase 5: Complete final deliverables
- Exercise 5: Understanding the phased approach to conducting a Gap analysis
- Setting the scope of the Gap analysis
- Establishing the Statement of Work
- Identifying the Gap analysis stakeholders
- Agreeing to questionnaire content
- Agreeing to Gap analysis format
- Creating a Gap analysis project plan
- Establishing a formal communication plan
- Defining deliverables
- Scheduling assessment activities
- Gap analysis kickoff
- Sample Gap analysis scope statements
Exercise 6: Setting the scope for a Gap analysis
- What is an Audit of Intent?
- Identifying and reviewing Intranet and other internal information stores
- Identifying and reviewing existing policies and process descriptions
- Identifying and reviewing existing service and service documentation
- Identifying and reviewing existing process diagrams and flowcharts
- Identifying and reviewing documented roles and responsibilities
- Identifying and reviewing key process outputs
- Identifying and reviewing existing communication plans
- Identifying and reviewing continual improvement activities and plans
- Identifying and reviewing relevant management and customer reports
- Exercise 7: Conducting an audit of intent
- What is audit of action?
- Interviewing service owners
- Interviewing service managers
- Interviewing process owners
- Interviewing process managers
- Interviewing practice owners
- Interviewing other stakeholders
- Documenting interviews and issuing follow-up requests
- Incorporating follow-up information
- Exercise 8: Conducting Gap analysis interviews
- Drafting an intermediate assessment for review
- Reviewing the draft assessment with key stakeholders
- Creating an initial continual service improvement register
- Validating the initial continual service improvement register
- Validating the draft Gap analysis
- Exercise 9: Managing the draft Gap analysis
- Drafting a final Gap analysis
- Providing short, medium and long-term recommendations
- Delivering an initial continual service improvement register
- Conducting a formal Gap analysis review meeting
- Discussing next steps
- Formally closing the project
- Exercise 10: Delivering a final Gap analysis
- Typical Gap analysis scope statements
- Best practices for audits of intent
- Best practices for audits of action
- Best practices for conducting Gap analysis interviews
- Best practices for delivering Gap analysis results
- Best practices for building a continual service improvement register
- Best practices for managing a Gap analysis as a project
- Best practices for managing a Gap analysis as a project within an overall service management program
- Typical challenges and how to overcome them
- Exercise 11: Conducting a Gap analysis
- Review of concepts learned
- Questions and answers
hands-on learning model
Access to sanitized process maps, KPI definitions, candidate initiative lists, and basic cost baselines (time, cycle time, error or rework rates)
Speak with a Cognixia specialist about enrollment options, custom cohorts for your leadership team, or tailored delivery formats for your organization.
One of our specialists will contact you within one business day.
Asked Questions
Find details on duration, delivery formats, customization options, and post-program reinforcement.
The course is highly recommended for –
- CIOs, CTOs
- Service management professionals
- IT managers and directors
- IT auditors
- Service managers
- Business analysts
- Business relationship managers
- Service catalog and portfolio management professionals
- Change management professionals
- Continual improvement professionals
A minimum internet speed of 2 MBPS is recommended.
All the sessions are recorded. So even if you miss a class, you can access a recorded video of the session in your LMS.
You will get lifetime access to LMS and all the learning material in it.
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