Go from order-taker to valued performance consultant. You may be pressured to give an immediate “yes” to a training request. Resist. Instead, start playing an essential role in driving your organization forward by using needs assessment to target your training programs to support critical business goals. Organizations need staff to be efficient and effective. That calls for training programs that get to the core of performance issues. A needs assessment ensures that you understand the root of problems like knowledge gaps, performance issues, and product quality and gives you the tools to resolve them. This second edition of Needs Assessment Basics starts with the initial training request and guides you all the way through data collection and making training recommendations. A progressive case study illustrates the seven phases of a needs assessment plan to reinforce each chapter’s content. Part of ATD’s Training Basics series, Needs Assessment Basics will help you develop a foundation that will ensure the training programs you design and deliver will help the organization succeed.

Table of Contents:
About the Training Basics Series v Preface vii Preface to the First Edition xi 1. Why Needs Assessment? 1 Introduction: An Analogy 2 What Is Training Needs Assessment? 2 Defining Key Terms 3 Purposes of Training Needs Assessment 4 Steps in Training Needs Assessment 7 2. The Training Request 11 Starting Near the End: The Training Request 12 Why Start Here? 13 The Initial Client Conversation 15 Building Credibility 18 Getting It Done 21 3. Identifying Questions and Data Sources 25 The Purposes of Data Collection and Analysis 26 4 Distinct Thought Processes 28 The Data Collection Plan 30 Getting It Done 33 4. Evaluating Potential Data Collection Methods 37 Understanding Data Collection Methods 38 Don't Go Ballistic Over Statistics 56 Completing the Data Collection Plan 59 Getting It Done 61 5. Data Collection Implementation 69 Choosing Data Collection Methods 70 Implementing Your Data Collection 74 The Ultimate Goal: Generating the Training Design 76 Getting It Done 84 6. Data Analysis 89 Data Analysis Versus Recommendations 90 What Do the Data Say? 92 A Short Side Trip to Descriptive Statistical Analysis 96 Nontraining Needs 99 Getting It Done 101 7. Data Analysis Recommendations 109 Recommendations Are Not the Same as Data Analysis 110 Making Training Recommendations 112 Making Nontraining Recommendations 112 So, What About ROI? 115 Tips for Projecting ROI 119 Or Is It ROE? 121 Getting It Done 121 8. Communicating With Your Client 129 Planning the Feedback Meeting and Presentation 130 Making the Presentation 134 Steps in the Presentation 135 Next Steps 137 Getting It Done 137 9. The Ideal Organization Scan 141 Organization Scanning and Business Need Identification 144 Sources of External and Organization Scan Data 144 Getting It Done 146 10. A Final Note 149 Common Errors in Needs Assessment 150 The Problem With Needs Assessment 151 What About Performance Consulting? 153 Conclusion 156 References 159 Additional Resources 161 About the Authors 167