Training Isn’t Always the Answer
A Practical Guide to Training Needs Analysis, Performance Diagnosis and Building Capability That Works
By Jason Smith. A practical guide for anyone asked to “sort out some training” who suspects that training might not be the whole answer.
Training can only fix problems training can fix.
Organisations spend a great deal on training that was never going to work, because the problem was never a lack of knowledge or skill. The book shows practitioners how to move from:
“What training do we need?”
to:
“What performance is required, what is preventing it, and what intervention will close the gap?”
It brings together Training Needs Analysis, Defence’s Systems Approach to Training and the tools business analysts use every day, and organises them around one five-stage method: the Prelude Performance & Capability Cycle.
Method, examples and tools.
- Approximately 300 pages
- 28 diagrams
- 18 ready-to-use tools
- Part One The Training Trap
- Part Two Making Sense of TNA
- Part Three Diagnose
- Part Four Define
- Part Five Intervene
- Part Six Prove
- Part Seven Doing It for Real
- Training Needs Analysis, explained plainly
- Performance diagnosis
- DSAT, and what Defence gets right about training
- ADDIE: useful, but not enough
- Business analysis techniques for L&D
- Root-cause analysis
- Capability analysis
- Intervention selection
- Assessment
- Evaluation
- Rapid TNA
- Two anonymised consultancy studies
- A practical toolkit
For people asked to fix performance through training.
- L&D practitioners
- Instructional designers
- Trainers
- Capability leads
- HR and OD professionals
- Consultants
- Managers
- Business analysts
- Change professionals
Jason Smith
Founder, Prelude Learning & Consultancy · Former Royal Navy · DSAT specialist
Jason Smith is the founder of Prelude Learning & Consultancy, an independent capability, readiness and workforce development consultancy.
He served for 23 years in the Royal Navy, in the Above Water Tactical branch, rising to senior operations, training and capability roles in ships including HMS Diamond, HMS Defender and HMS Kent, and in joint maritime headquarters. Along the way he spent nearly three years designing and delivering technical training at HMS Collingwood.
Since leaving the Navy he has led national learning and development operations for a healthcare provider supporting around 15,000 colleagues, designed leadership and onboarding programmes in social housing and, most recently, led DSAT-aligned Training Needs Analysis and learning architecture work on the Ministry of Defence’s Digital Skills for Defence programme.
He is a DSAT specialist and a PRINCE2 Practitioner, and holds CMI Level 6 Leadership & Management and CMI Level 5 Coaching & Mentoring qualifications.
Paperback and Kindle.
The Amazon listing link will be added here at publication.