Needs assessment
Needs assessment is a strategic process used by various organizations—such as government agencies, businesses, educational institutions, and healthcare systems—to identify and address gaps between current operations and desired outcomes. This approach emerged in the late 1970s, largely influenced by Roger Kaufman's work, which emphasized a systematic redesign of network operations rather than reactive problem-solving. By gathering input from stakeholders, including employees and community members, organizations can pinpoint operational deficiencies and prioritize needs based on urgency and available resources. This holistic perspective fosters collaboration and empowers those affected by organizational changes, promoting a sense of community and shared responsibility.
The needs assessment process involves convening teams that analyze data and develop a focused report with actionable recommendations, serving as a blueprint for improvement. Over the years, Kaufman’s foundational model has been adapted to various contexts, from enhancing inter-departmental communication to improving city governance and educational resource allocation. As organizations strive for measurable results, many consulting firms have emerged to support the implementation of needs assessments, ensuring that the insights gained translate into lasting enhancements in performance and service delivery. Overall, needs assessment is a vital tool for fostering effective change and promoting organizational longevity in a diverse range of settings.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Needs assessment
For any network to improve, its operators must first identify those gaps between how it is currently run and how they want it to run. This process is called needs assessment, and it has become part of the operations of virtually any network, including government agencies, businesses, school systems and universities, hospitals, and even entire communities. Until the 1970s, organizations addressed problems as they arose, and executives were judged by how rapidly their networks responded to these short-term, immediate challenges. The field of needs assessment arose as organizations came to require more complex problem-solving models that took a much broader view of network operations and mapped long-term strategies to address gaps in the network on a variety of levels.
Overview
The theoretical framework of needs assessment was pioneered in the late 1970s by Roger Kaufman, a professor at Florida State University with a background in both psychology and industrial engineering, as a way to improve the performance of a network by nothing less than system redesign. The logic of the model was basic: rather than trying to simply contain problems as they arose, organizations would take a look at current network operations and gather information from workers, clients, customers, or residents to confirm operational deficiencies. Then the organizations would convene a committee to review the data and itemize needs. Kaufman defined needs as any discrepancy between operations and how operations should run. The team would examine the urgency of each problem and, in turn, rank the needs according to the network’s ability in terms of time, money, and resources to address them. Rather than scapegoating particular segments of the network operations or simply eliminating poorly performing divisions (or individuals), needs assessment took a broader, holistic view of an operation. Finally, bringing together the vetted data about network operations and the specific recommendations for addressing needs into a focused report offered organizations a blueprint for clear remediation tactics.
After four decades of evolution, Kaufman’s basic model—and logic—of needs assessment has been adopted and modified for dozens of different templates, including ways to improve communication between departments within a network; ways to direct a more profitable job search; ways to prioritize individual self-improvement regimens; strategies for addressing often overwhelmed city and county governments; and methods for handling problems within school districts facing drastic budget cuts. Gathering the information empowers those most directly impacted by the network operations, creates a feeling of community, and reassures them that problems can be addressed by management in a way that will improve the network’s longevity and performance. Hundreds of consulting firms specialize in performing needs assessments for networks determined to realize measurable improvements using protocols that follow the basic guidelines of Kaufman’s work.
Bibliography
Altschuld, James, and David Devraj Kumar. Needs Assessment: An Overview. New York: Sage, 2009. Print.
Berkowitz, Bill, and Jenette Nagy. “Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys.” The Community Tool Box. Work Group for Community Health and Dev. at the U of Kansas, n.d. Web. 24 Aug. 2013.
Burtonshaw-Gunn, Simon, and Malik Salameh. Essential Tools for Organizational Performance: Tools,Models and Approaches. New York: Wiley, 2009. Print.
Gupta, Kavita. A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment. New York: Pfeiffer, 2007. Print.
Kaufman, R., and Ingrid Guerra-Lopez. Needs Assessments for Organizational Success. Alexandria: ASTD, 2013. Print.
Satre, Derek D., et al. “Using Needs Assessment to Develop Curricula for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) in Academic and Community Health Settings.” Substance Abuse 33.3 (2012): 298–302. Print.
Watkins, Ryan, Maurya West-Meiers, and Yusra Laila Visser. A Guide to Assessing Needs: Essential Tools for Collecting Information, Making Decisions, and Achieving Development Results. Washington: World Bank, 2012. Print.
Yun, Shaohui. “Study on Systematic Employee Training Procedure Based on Needs Assessment.” Proceedings of the 2012 3rd International Conference on E-Business and E-Government. Vol. 2. Washington: IEEE Computer Soc., 2012. Print.