Needs Assesment for trainings

Jul 12, 2017

I am currently trying to develop a needs assessment for training. I am looking for tips on how to develop an assessment that can be used as a pre meeting survey to get background information before our first visit. I have a list of a couple, but I feel there is defiantly room to improve just wanting to get some input on a good way to develop the assessment.

4 Replies
Bob S

Hi Brett,

Are you expecting answers to this survey, or just a heads up that these are questions you will be asking about in person. If the former....

Not sure if you are open to entertaining other approaches, but you may want to ask yourself who this  would really be for.  Does it make your client's life easier... or yours?  

Trying to gather information remotely like this can be  efficient... when it works. But it puts the burden on the stakeholder/client and that can be more frustrating than you realize. Not just the time commitment, but often the answers you think will be simple might be far more complicated to the client. One small example....

Q: How many employees do you have

A: Do they mean in this one business unit, all business units? And should I include external temps?  What about contractors that might take the training but aren't in our system? And do they want our affiliate employees that we pay commissions to?

Further, many clients are hiring an outside expert specifically because they don't want to/haven't been able to do this sort of self analysis and aren't sure where to begin. They need your expertise to guide the conversation and probe interactively.

So... At the most, I might suggest sending a pre-engagement letter outlining the kinds of things you will be discussing with them when you meet.

Probably not what you wanted for feedback (sorry), but honestly hope it helps!

Jermaine Perkins

Thanks for this feedback Bob! I've been looking into a needs assessment for my role as well when working with other colleagues in my company. I'm looking for a resource that i can review that will give me insight on how to transition from an "Order Taker" approach to a more professional & respectable approach. I appreciate and agree about your point of although this is making it easy for YOU, you may be causing frustration on the SME because they may not have filled out a survey of this type & or the questions may be extremely vague.  I would like to find a blended approach to this, have a formal request form with simple questions that are clear & then some sort of manual/guide that can be filled with info from the meeting with the SME. 

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