5 Questions to Ask a Stakeholder Before Designing Training

Performance problems can be caused by a myriad of things. Perhaps your organization has undergone a downsizing, or perhaps a department is understaffed or their equipment is unreliable. Unfortunately many managers and organizations assume that poor performance is directly linked to a lack of skill or knowledge which can be solved by training.

In my 20 plus years of consulting experience, I’ve found that what is initially presented as a training problem is often something else entirely.

Before embarking on any training program it is imperative that a needs analysis is conducted in order to pinpoint the exact cause of poor performance and to ascertain if the poor performance can be solved by applying training. Unfortunately, most organizations skip the needs analysis, assuming that they already know the cause.

The following 5 questions will help you to pinpoint the true cause of a performance problem and also help with the design process by ascertaining what training truly needs to be created. Ask these questions of the individual in the organization who is requesting that you design and develop a training program to address an assumed training issue.

1. What is the problem you are experiencing?

Often you'll hear a request along the lines of, “My sales team needs training on teamwork." Well that’s putting the cart before the horse, isn't it? Ask the requestor to give you a big picture view of the factors they see as contributing to the poor performance. Do not accept their definition of the performance problem (in this case, lack of team work) until you hear more about the work environment, the intended audience, their job related duties, etc.

2. What are the symptoms that led you to believe this was a problem?

Notice the key word “symptoms." Very often what presents itself to be a performance problem is truly a symptom of a deeper or related organizational problem. For instance, a large publishing company believed it needed customer service training because it came in dead last in the customer service category in a survey published by its industry magazine. When more investigation was done, it was determined that the organization was suffering from an inadequate technology system that led to the symptom of poor customer service.

3. Why do you think this is a training need?

Remember, the person requesting you to design and deliver training has their own perspective on the situation. When this question was posed to a retail executive his response was that a particular department's reports were consistently wrong and therefore they must not know how to use the reporting software. The executive made a huge leap from the evidence of erroneous reports to employee’s lack of skill or knowledge. The intended trainees will also have their own perspective and it's a good idea to ask them, at some point, if they feel a need for training based on the evidence at hand. When further investigation was done with the intended trainee group, from the above mentioned retail organization, it was discovered that the employees lacked basic math skills but knew how to use the software quite well.

4. What organizational factors might be playing a role?

When organizations are in flux, a sense of ennui trickles down to every individual's performance. If the organization has been talking about an acquisition or merger, it can cause people to change their work habits. If a downsizing has occurred and more work needs to be accomplished with less people, it’s logical that poor performance will follow. Perhaps the department has had three different managers in the last 18 months, and every manager has a different perspective on how the work should be done; eventually people start to second-guess their abilities and perform at a minimal level in order to “play it safe.”

5. What training already exists?

Often you'll find that a “training problem” is a frequent issue within the organization, and one that has been addressed in the past. Determining what training already exists is helpful in two ways: 1) it helps you to determine what training people have had in the past and alerts you to look for reasons why that training did not “stick,” and 2) it should minimize your need to reinvent the wheel because it's probable that you can repurpose the existing training content.