Problem Traversal Theory vs. Gap Analysis

About a month ago, I came in contact with a problem-solving framework called Gap Analysis (also known as Needs Analysis) that shares similarities with Problem Traversal Theory, and though I have yet to share my theory in full, I wanted to log my thoughts on the overlap while it was fresh on my mind.

A cornerstone of Problem Traversal Theory is that all things have current states, and a problem exists when there is a desired new state.

And Gap Analysis is a process used to identify the differences between a system’s current state and desired future state for strategy development and execution.

I was excited to see that both my theory and Gap Analysis landed on this idea of current and desired states independently.

This adds legitimacy to those chosen terms and may be a familiar anchor point for people to begin to grasp the theory.

And ultimately, I believe Problem Traversal Theory and Gap Analysis can coexist because it aims to explain What problems are, give tools to verify them, and traverse up and down a hierarchy of them, while Gap Analysis is used to develop strategy to bridge a gap between a current and desired state (otherwise known as “Solution-ing”).