Gap Assessment

Welcome to Gap Assessment!

Conducting a gap assessment while you are enduring a life setback is important because if you do not have an understanding of your past decision-making, you are doomed to repeat the same patterns and behaviors that contributed to your current setback. Gap assessment is typically a tool I use to get people to assess their financial decision-making, but all life planning can benefit from assessing knowledge gaps and designing a plan to close those gaps in multiple areas.

This page introduces briefly the concept of gap assessment for life planning, and it includes both snippets of a longer video lesson and the full video lesson that follows the lecture. Please note that you might see this discussion incorporated under other tabs to demonstrate the importance of the concept.

For example, you will see the full discussion below under the “Homeless Recovery Research” tab to suggest that chronically homeless people and homeless shelters, advocacy organizations, and federal guidelines should consider assessing knowledge gaps when it comes to working and facilitating services for the chronically homeless. This means that chronically homeless people should be in on the discussion of how services are distributed. Click the tab for more information.

Related video lessons are available on the YouTube channel Regina Y. Favors. Some of those videos are available for view after the lecture. Visit the channel for more information.

Pre-Discussion

It is important that you know and understand your gaps. It will allow you to prepare for recovery in different areas of your life. Here is a quick video to help you understand why conducting a gap assessment is necessary.

Even though conducting a gap assessment may take time, and you might find it inconvenient and/or unnecessary, the process will yield productive results and help you to be both conscious and conscientious about the plans you make with your life.

Understanding Gap Assessment

The gap assessment is a strategy typically used in business, and I have added it to one or more books, especially the one titled Favors Sample Life Plan: Using Psychology, SWOT, & SMART to Measure Financial Progress. The book is available on Amazon. You can find links for each book under the tabs “Books” and “About.” The use of the gap assessment strategy in the book references finances and financial management. Here is a quick video on the concept.

Conducting a gap assessment for research purposes is always important. Consider the following questions as informative.

Why is it important to conduct a gap assessment?

It is important to conduct a gap assessment in your thinking about where you are and where you want to be long-term. The gap assessment usually reveals what is going on in your present day and what you want to happen in your future. Here is a quick video about counting the costs before you make decisions in your life.

The gap assessment is significant because it is useful for all areas of your life, including academic, professional, personal, and financial. The last category is likely more important than any other area because if you do not have discipline over your finances, the knowledge gap will affect every other area of your life. Your finances matter, and how you manage your finances matters!

What is a gap assessment?

A gap assessment, or in industry terms, gap analysis, is a technique business leaders use to determine the steps needed to move from a current state to a desired state.

A gap analysis includes the following steps:

Listing characteristics of the present situation (attributes, competencies, performance)
Listing characteristics needed to achieve a future situation (what should be)
Highlighting gaps that exist and that need to be filled

It is the difference between “what is” and “what should be.”

Where are you today?

This question encourages you to assess areas of your life that might reflect a knowledge gap or that might reflect a knowledge assurance. Before you complete the workbook elements of this discussion, review the following video.

Review the following categories and provide responses based on your concerns.

Financially

Financially refers to whether your debt outweighs your income. Do you have a knowledge gap between your debt and income?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Economically

Economically refers to status and poverty level, or little above poverty level, or thriving. Are you at the poverty level? Are you above the poverty level? Do you know your economic status?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Emotionally

Emotionally refers to mood regulation and whether you know how to handle conflict. Do you have an emotional conflict with your money? Do you spend emotionally or logically? With whom do you have an emotional conflict with your money?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Psychologically

Psychologically refers to stress management and whether you have taken on too much. Are you stressed or distressed in some area of your life, especially with finances? What or who is contributing to the stress?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Spiritually

Spiritually refers to your understanding about sex in marriage and sex out of marriage. What are your views on sex? Is there a gap in your understanding about game playing in relationships that include sex?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Skill Development

Skill development refers to whether it is time for you to begin upgrading skills or developing a skill to move you forward. What are your current skills? Do they need updating?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Where should you be?

Where you should be is predicated on who you think you are, your capacity and capability, and your future contribution. It is up to you to ensure you have what you need in the present for the future. There are some things you know. There are some things you do not know.

However, not everyone is patient with what you do not know. In other words, if you are plagued with a current distress resulting from a job loss, financial loss, death, etc., not everyone is patient with your re-learning process. Before continuing, review the following video. It includes a brief reference to marriage, but the lesson is largely about how important it is to understand you.

Even if you have been patient with someone in your past, there is no guarantee that the same person will be patient with you in the present. You might have accepted someone into your home because that person lost their home.

However, you might also expect that same person to take you in when you are financially down only to realize that the same courtesy is not extended to you. It is important to plan for the unexpected loss. The following video is about conducting an assessment of your finances. Review it before completing the questions below.

Think about the issues referenced within the video as you provide responses to the following questions.

What are your financial plans?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

What is your financial vision?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

What is your financial purpose?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

To where do you want to take yourself financially?

_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Conducting a gap assessment should not stop with finances. You may easily use the strategy to assess romantic relationships, business relationships, and any other area that you may be struggling with and needing resolution.