Needs assessment discussion.

TRIGGER: from ATD (Association for Talent Development):

“… needs assessments are an integral part of developing talent.”

—> In the quote from ATD below any text set apart in these brackets [  X  ] indicates              BPI comments.

“In a recent research report, ATD found:

• Only 56% of surveyed organizations use needs assessments.

• The top challenge with needs assessments is stakeholders believing they already know the needs. [We interpret “stakeholders … already know the needs” to mean the stakeholders think they know the solution already.  A solution and a need are different.  A need exists now, but a solution in this context is only an idea for meeting a need.]

• The primary benefit of training needs assessments is identifying performance gaps.” [We prefer the term needs assessment to “training” needs assessment because training is not always the most effective solution or may only be part of an optimal solution.]

FURTHER COMMENT:
Please read the article: Critical Thinking Interview -Part II in the PUBLIC ARTICLES section of our website www.critical-thinking.com (especially pages 3-4).  The URL for this specific article is: https://www.critical-thinking.com/sites/default/files/A02.

Our experience shows that there is an almost “casual waste of Talent Development resources” perpetrated on the altar of appearing to be cooperative while missing an opportunity to be truly effective. As a result, training is often rightly seen as not having much of an impact on the real day-to-day business of the organization and can be the first to suffer budget cuts when times get tough.  (Witness the purge of budgets and personnel of training departments in 2009!)  We’ve found that both internal stakeholders and internal Talent Development specialists fall victim to the same logical error while the organization suffers two wounds – $’s wasted on resources for the wrong solutions and $’s lost on continuing performance gaps.

What should be done about it? Training and Talent Development Professionals with their internal customers should learn how to accurately analyze the real needs (causes) of performance gaps before considering solutions.  Please read the above mentioned critical thinking article for more insight into this issue – and also see this article HRD, Consulting w/ your customers! 

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