Your blog post (and visual) brought to mind the Performance Pyramid methodology created by John Wedman (prof at U of Missouri teaches Educational Technology courses). He theorized that there are certain building blocks that need to be in place before performance can be achieved and that before training could take place all the other performance support building blocks need to exist. Otherwise, training cannot be effective.
http://needsassessment.missouri.edu/pop_up.swfI really like the mental image of blocks when thinking about needs analysis and find it apropos both you and John use it.
http://needsassessment.missouri.edu/images/pyramid.jpg