TNA – why is this acronym so important in design thinking and eLearning?

If you’re wondering what TNA stands for, here’s the crux: Target Audience Analysis. It sounds quite robotic, but is one of the most important elements of a nicely and effectively designed eLearning course, a successful design thinking project, hell, even a successful life! Let me prove it to you!

I think we all can imagine that knowing who we’re talking to can make or break a deal. However! In my career as an Instructional Designer, TNA is one of the stages that is, sadly, continuously omitted. The reasons were usually given as „we’re not client-facing” or „we’re learners ourselves, so we all know this” or just the typical „we need to content asap, so no time for any analysis” – and that’s so sad! There are so may opportunities missed where specialized, valuable, and matched content could be created, and – as a result – to have a dedicated „hard users” that I always try to promote doing TNA! Here’s why.

TRAP No. 1: AUDIENCE – CONTENT MISMATCH

No solution is „all size fits all” solution, and maybe especially in learning. You cannot, and my all means you shouldn’t, teach everything to everyone. But, the same, you shouldn’t teach wrong things to people. If not anything else, it’s time-consuming and ineffective, and creates a false environment of learning acquisition. Not to mention, it just wastes everyone’s time! Yours, because you spend it on creating materials that won’t be useful to some people anyway, and your learners, because they will sit though content that is in no way helpful to them. That doesn’t sound like good Instructional Design, good learning process, and for sure doesn’t create a good impression of the team or company…

One way to prevent this situation from happening is doing a proper Training Needs Analysis. Finding out what the drive behind the planned learning is, what needs should be met and taken care of is the foundation of neatly planned educational content.

To avoid this trap, you should ask in your TNA about:

• Who needs training, and what do they need to learn?
• What skills are needed and for what reason?
• What skills are already in place, is there any existing knowledge?
• What is needed but is not accessible?
• Is there any training on that matter? Why is it not used? What is missing from it?

TRAP No. 2: CONTENT – METHODS MISMATCH

Can you be teaching using wrong methods? Well yes, of course you can (and I know it’s hard to agree amidst all the „training video snippets” floating around)! As Instructional Designers, we need to be aware of what methods would work better for our audience, so the knowledge is not dispersed between ineffective tasks and quizzes.

Another angle is to take a look at the environment; you need to understand which method would work best for your learners’ situation. And sometimes (usually more often than not), you fill find out that training is actually not the best option to get the desired effect! Besides training, which is everyone’s to-go solutions, we have books, coaching sessions, one-to-one instruction meetings with, shadowing, analyzing case studies, webinars, mentoring… And, with the options listed, the decision may arrive that training as we know it is not the best choice and may in fact impede learning.

To avoid this trap, you should ask in your TNA about:

• What is the actual problem this training will try to solve?
• Why is the problem/need for training happening?
• In what ways will training address these problems?
• Was there an attempt already to solve the problem? What was it, and what were the outcomes?
• Are there any things already in place that can be used in the training?

TRAP No. 3: MONEYBANK

Who here wants to spend millions of whatever currency on training, if they can spend way less? Hmm, any takers? Thought so! Yes, an effective TNA will save you/your company precious funds! We already know, from the previous point, that TNA helps to verify whether training is needed, and if it is, what type of training and what can help from the

Another angle is to take a look at the environment; you need to understand which method would work best for your learners’ situation. And sometimes (usually more often than not), you fill find out that training is actually not the best option to get the desired effect! Besides training, which is everyone’s to-go solutions, we have books, coaching sessions, one-to-one instruction meetings with, shadowing, analyzing case studies, webinars, mentoring… And, with the options listed, the decision may arrive that training as we know it is not the best choice and may in fact impede learning.

To avoid this trap, you should ask in your TNA about:

• What is the actual problem this training will try to solve?
• Why is the problem/need for training happening?
• In what ways will training address these problems?
• Was there an attempt already to solve the problem? What was it, and what were the outcomes?
• Are there any things already in place that can be used in the training?

VISUALS TO REMEMBER TNA

Investing in a needs assessment, even if it’s a quick one, will make your training more effective. #training #iopsych #iopsychmemes #psychology #psychologymemes #psychmemes #APpsych pic.twitter.com/NpZGwC3TEF

— I-O Psych Memes (@iopsychmemes) July 26, 2020