Customer Reviews

Figuring Things Out: A Trainer's Guide To Needs And Task Analysis

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Part of the thrill of being a training specialist is that it makes you sort of a performance detective. You have to figure why what is not getting done, or why it isn't being done well enough, and once in a while your managers might have a streak of common sense and let slip the dogs of training to find out how performance can be improved. That doesn't always mean you end up training people; it means you conduct a needs analysis. It's cerebral and that's what makes this one of my favorite phases in the instructional systems design (ISD) process.

"Figuring Things Out," by Zemke and Kramlinger, is "a trainer's guide to needs and task analysis," just as it says in the subtitle. The authors have a strategy and several tactics for "figuring things out:" 1) Always work from a model of human performance 2) Start the study as high in the organization as possible and work your way down. (This means an organizational analysis and operational analysis, if possible). 3) Always know whom you are studying, 4) Never use just one information-gathering technique, 5) Let line managers make critical decisions, and 6) Remember the KISS principle. The authors believe that following these principles, with a touch of ingenuity and a thorough understanding of the performance problem, the solution will define itself.

The first part of the book concentrates on conducting task analyses. What tasks do the people do, what subtasks and what are the elements of each subtask? They describe several methods: analysis, observation, time studies, task listings, S-R tables, and behavioral algorithms.

The next sections III & IV, are more tactical. It is about talking to people about work. The authors illustrate a number of methods for gathering information such as focus groups, a structured interview, and phone interviews. Section IV is about asking questions through critical incidence techniques, consensus groups, and surveys and questionnaires. The final section, Odds and Ends, cover such topics as matching techniques to problem and reporting results to management.

Zemke and Kramlinger are very easy to read, and their topics are not entertaining, but they are not boring to the training specialist. This book not only helps the trainer to identify the proper techniques and under what conditions they should be used, but it also includes an examination of doing things wrong that will bring the inevitable pitfalls to any project.

Conducting a needs analysis is the first step in the ISD process. It is vital that the persons conducting it get it right because it is the foundation for the rest of the model. If your idea of training is more than implementation, than I recommend you entertain the idea of adding this book to your shelf.

Sorry to disagree so wholeheartedly with the other reviewer, but I wonder if we're even talking about the same book. This is a compendium of techniques for conducting a needs analysis (from task analysis to critical incident reporting to fault tree analysis, and on and on). There's very little 'war story' here. I reviewed this for the HRDQ-sponsored "Training Book Review" blog [...] so will quote that here:

After several years as a workplace trainer/instructional designer, I went back to graduate school in the late 1990s to begin a Master's program in Training and Development, and was shocked at the poor quality of many of the assigned texts. Oh, there was nothing wrong with the writing, or the layout. It was just that so many of the authors had obviously never actually done any real training in any real workplace. "Insist on meeting with the CEO and entire senior management team before undertaking any training design." "Expect the assessment phase to last for 3 to 6 months." "Managers requesting training should understand the need to shut the shop floor down for several shifts in order to give you access to front-line workers." Uh, huh. And monkeys fly out of my ears.

Then a professor assigned Figuring Things Out, at least 20 years old even then. It was immediately apparent that the authors had done this. They understood that the reality of going into a setting (in which even an internal training consultant is usually viewed as an interloper) is fraught with political, tactical, and strategic issues, never even mind the actual work. They understood the reality of impatient managers and stakeholders who didn't really understand training design, but thought they did. They understood the real uses and limitations of the techniques they offered. And unlike the other textbooks, they were honest in sometimes saying the answer is, "It depends."

The book offers a review not just types of assessment, but which techniques to use when, with the goal of actually figuring out the problem. The authors offer instructions for using techniques like time studies, critical incident, and behavioral frequency counts; consensus groups, surveys, and fault tree analysis, and many more. More importantly, they provide these not as a one-right approach but with pros and cons, tips and tricks, and potential pitfalls. pitfalls. And: all within realistic time frames ("Call a task force and take a year...half the jobs involved may cease to exist"). The authors then wrap up the section on techniques with a nice overview called "What to Use When" and a flow chart approach to selecting the best techniques for the situation.

Two sections I`ve found particularly useful over the years, different from what you will find elsewhere in most work on "needs analysis". First, a whole section on presenting findings to management: "Like it or not, the results of a mediocre study persuasively presented are more likely to generate management action than are results of an excellent study poorly presented...when we report findings to a client, our pervasive goal should be to cause someone to do something." They offer good tips here, including advice for delivering bad news. Then, there's the 19-page "Emergency Kit Statistics" chapter is a wonderful add-on for those of us who do not find math to be our, shall we say, unique ability.

Figuring Things Out is sharp, smart, practical, and pretty much as applicable today as it was 20 years ago.

I first heard about this book during a Twitter #lrnchat discussion, when several people said it was the best book they used in grad school. It is an excellent, real-world tool, full of tools for analyzing training problems and deciding whether they ARE training problems. The sections on delivering bad news and 'emergency kit statistics' are excellent.It's a shame it's out of print, but I'm glad copies can still be had.

This is about 30% useful and the remaining 70% is a couple of guys writing very loose case studies of their 'clever' successes. It's simply boring and useless--just one person's opinion. I consider it a waste of money and suggest they cut the price by 50%.