Gap analysis (and why some gaps are a good thing)

Gap analysis is about doing deep analysis on how systems don’t solve all the problems that they could do. A smart integration engineer will avoid it because it is a make work exercise.

The real world is a lot more complicated than any IT system.

People, customers and organizations don’t fit into well defined neat data models. If you have a multi-national customer, then you are probably going to have bill differently for their different units.

People don’t stay conveniently associated with one company for their entire lifetime - they move around. Some people have multiple addresses and multiple phone numbers - life is complicated. The best any IT system can do is be helpful for organizing the more typical scenarios - users will always have to find solutions to some problems which don’t fit neatly into the IT system.

It’s faster to focus on solving one problem at a time that has the most impact rather than getting lost in trying to solve every possible problem with IT systems.

A good IT system is one which copes with a lot of your workflow. A system which copes with 100% of your odd cases is probably too complicated and will be hard to use.

Having some gaps is a good thing.

See Do not let edge cases complicate the core of a design.