der Ist-Zustand — the actual state, literally the is-state.
der Soll-Zustand — the target state, literally the should-state.
der Soll-Ist-Vergleich — the comparison of target and actual.
die Ausgangslage — the starting situation.
die Aufgabenstellung — the definition of the task.
das Thema abgrenzen — to delimit the topic, to state what lies outside it.