Training needs assessment
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'll treat everything as if it were a nail." In terms of training, if you think training can solve organizational problems, you'll always recommend training as an answer. Let's say your sales team has a quota of making 50 cold calls per day. The sales manager notices that barely anyone is achieving that number, so he asks you to locate a sales trainer to come in, and teach everyone how to make cold calls, but what if something else is wrong with the phone system? Wouldn't it be a bummer to pay for all that training, only to learn that it wasn't the issue? This is where a needs assessment comes in, and there are three steps, first you'll gather data.
You could create a questionnaire to find out what the sales team thinks about the issue, or you could do focus groups, or interviews. You might also observe the team, listen in on calls, or review documents or work samples. Next, you'll analyze the data to understand what is working well.Source: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/strategic-human-resources/training-needs-assessment