Needs assessment.

For any network to improve, its operators must first identify those gaps between how it is currently run and how they want it to run. This process is called needs assessment, and it has become part of the operations of virtually any network, including government agencies, businesses, school systems and universities, hospitals, and even entire communities. Until the 1970s, organizations addressed problems as they arose, and executives were judged by how rapidly their networks responded to these short-term, immediate challenges. The field of needs assessment arose as organizations came to require more complex problem-solving models that took a much broader view of network operations and mapped long-term strategies to address gaps in the network on a variety of levels.