1. Purpose and scope
A gap assessment is a rehearsal and a measurement at the same time. It uses the same model, the same rating rules and, ideally, the same kind of evidence as the formal assessment, so that its result predicts what the customer's assessors would find. Its value lies in honesty: a gap assessment that samples prepared material, or that rates generously to encourage the teams, produces a baseline that hides the work still to be done.
The assessor interviews practitioners about how they actually work, looks at their records in the tools they use, follows trace links from customer needs to test results, and rates each process attribute in scope on the four-point ordinal scale of the ISO/IEC 33000 framework (not, partially, largely or fully achieved). Ratings are recorded with the evidence behind them. The output is a process baseline and a gap list in which every gap has an owner and a priority based on its risk to the target profile.
In scope: assessment planning for the gap exercise, evidence access, interviews, rating, the gap assessment report, the process baseline and the prioritised gap list. Out of scope: fixing the gaps, which begins in Process Definition & Improvement Plan, and the formal assessment itself.
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