Module 3 — BDAT Baseline and Gap Analysis

Theory 20 minutes + Workshop 60 minutes

Duration: 80 minutes. Artefact produced: BDAT baseline and gap analysis.

What you will learn

Read the baseline

Separate business, data, application, and technology facts without collapsing them into one system view.

Find the gaps

Identify what prevents the target outcome from being achieved.

Connect domains

Explain how a gap in one domain creates consequences in another.

Make gaps useful

Turn observations into decisions, risks, dependencies, and roadmap inputs.

BDAT is a way to stop guessing

A baseline is not an inventory exercise. It is the disciplined act of understanding the current operating reality well enough to make a credible change decision. BDAT gives the architect four lenses: business, data, application, and technology. The value is not the list of assets; the value is seeing where the current state cannot support the intended future state.

Create a decision-ready gap view

The organisation wants to move to cloud, but it has fragmented clinical systems, inconsistent data ownership, ageing infrastructure, and unclear business ownership for several applications.

Workshop task

Create a BDAT table with baseline observations, target needs, gaps, decision impact, and recommended next action.

Assessment prompt

Explain the difference between a technology gap and a business capability gap, then show how both affect the cloud roadmap.

What to submit

BDAT baseline table; five priority gaps; three cross-domain dependencies; one executive summary paragraph.

Next module

Module 4 — Options Paper and Migration Roadmap.