Questions, Questions and More Questions

To answer the question at ASTD’s Learning Circuits Blog, I am going to try to stick to Tony’s initial thought of specific questions and dive very deep into the technique I use when consulting for a needs assessment or evaluation.

I use a technique I call the 360 Needs Assessment. This process involves asking questions at several levels within an organization. The idea is to separate the facts from the opinions. If I can triangulate information, I know that I have a fact, if I can’s substantiate it…well then more investigation is required. Or I know that the information is a minority opinion.

So, I first ask questions of the stakeholders:

• Why do you think this is a problem?
• Have you every tried to solve it before? How? What was the result?
• Why do you think training is the answer?
• If the problem is solved, describe the ideal state, the results, the outcome, your expectations.
• If the problem isn’t solved, what are the consequences?
• Did the employees ever know how to do this in the past?
• Do you think internal or external forces are causing the change.

Then I move to the employees impacted by the problem/challenge/potential training, I want to know if the stakeholders (usually management) know what is going on in the trenches (hint, they rarely do).I use similar questions but not always phrased as below.

• What do you think is causing the problem?
• What do you think is the solution to the problem?
• Are their incentives that drive you away from the desired goal?
• Is the environment conducive to your obtaining the desired outcome?
• Would training in XYZ solve this problem for you?
• Do you feel that you know how to perform the tasks that are required?
• What would you do to solve this problem?
• Have you ever seen this problem before? What was the attempt to solve it?

Then I move to managers of the employees:

• How long has this been a problem?
• Is it as “bad” or “good” as indicated by the stakeholders?
• Why aren’t employees performing (solving the problem?)
• What is the result on the customers or downstream employees?
• Is their another way (besides training) to solve this problem?
• Do you have the right people in place?
• What external or internal factors are contributing this is problem?

Next, I talk to downstream employees

• What problems do you encounter as a result of the performance upstream?
• What outputs would you like to see but are not getting from the upstream employees?
• Why do you think you are not getting what you need?
• How would you solve the problem?
• How often do you meet with employees upstream? (usually never)
• How do you have to compensate for the employees upstream?

Finally, I talk to the ultimate customers; usually they are outside of the organization. This is not always possible for many reasons but can be extremely insightful.

• Please rate the product/service/attention provided by organizations XYZ?
• What would you like to see improved?
• What is fantastic and that you don’t want to see change?
• How has performance changed over time?
• Is the organization responsive to your needs?
• What are your needs?
• How does organization XYZ understand what your needs are?

These are some of the tactical questions I ask. I don’t always get access to all these people but I certainly try. I also like to get people who have been with the organization for a long time, short time and intermediate. The goal is to gather data from a variety of places. Sometimes when you learn something at one level, you need to go back to another level and ask more questions.

It does take a while with intense interviews, however, you can cram a number of interviews into a day or week and really get a feel for the answers after doing a half-a-dozen or so.
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