Problem: You have been hired by Training Corp to be one of their new trainers. You have worked for the company for 6 months as a Training Consultant getting up to speed on the processes and systems in the company and have just landed your first client. Your client is an innovative marketing firm based out of Chicago called Mink Marketing.
Mink Marketing has contacted you to put together a training plan for 8 of their Directors (each Director has five directs reports, who are Marketing Managers) who are struggling with how to give difficult feedback to one another, as a team. Specifically, they are not a very confrontational group by nature, they are somewhat resistant to giving direct feedback, and they are not good at initiating tough conversations with their direct reports and teams. This has resulted in a lack of authentic conversations and constructive conflict which has reduced innovation, better decision-making, and healthy debate at the front-line levels within the firm, which is jeopardizing their place in the market. Mink Marketing is desperate for help to train these Managers to be more comfortable with constructive conflict, healthy debate, and have the skills to provide direct, honest, and construct feedback to each other.
Your Assignment:
Review the needs analysis chapter in your text and notes from our in-class lecture on needs analysis.
Please write a brief report which includes the questions you would ask the client, Mink Marketing, during the needs analysis interview and the rationale for why you chose each question.
Your questions should ensure that you get all the necessary information to write a training plan for the client, including their vision of the purpose of the training, any logistics info, the content of the training, the duration of the training, desired outcomes of the training, etc.
You can only have only 8 questions at maximum, so be strategic and careful about the questions you choose.