Mind the Gaps. Or, why systems fail to deliver.
The sponsor and the stakeholders describe the problem situation to the professionals whose job is to solve the problem. Their description does not describe the problem properly. They may present relatively minor problems as serious ones, they may forget some aspects, they may disguise some problems, they may have solutions in mind and describe problems in terms of the solutions. They may even be innocently unaware of the real problems.
The actual problem is different from the one they described. The first gap: The real problem state P, and the described problem state P'
The system developers conceptualise solutions for P'. The chosen conceptual solution S may seem to address P' but conceptual incongruencies remain hidden, That is, S may solve some aspects of P' but not as much as thought. The second gap. S vs S'.
The builders build T, the implementation of S. T is never perfect and falls short of the expectations of S. What is delivered is T'. The 3rd gap.
T' is operated not as ideally as it should. It becomes T''. The 4th gap.
In the end, we have solution T" being used to solve problem P, whilst also delivering its own new set of problems p(T''), producing a new problem situation P(T'').
