feedback forms · question bank
Training Needs Survey.folder
Most courses are built on what the trainer assumes. This survey moves the evidence up front — ask the room what they can do, what they need, and where the gap hurts, before you design a slide.
// six prompt cards with backs and blanks · 15 min · print & run · tool pack · no projector, no account
A training-needs survey changes the plan, not the decoration. Six items — starting line, target, cost, urgency, support format, plus one control — produce the three signals a curriculum needs: the honest starting line, the task actually waiting for the skill, and the consequence stated in the room’s own words.
Send it before enrolment closes. The poker deck prints one card per prompt; the sorting guide clusters answers so the biggest theme becomes your session spine and the outliers become your optional track.
the run sheet
// this is the guide file, word for word — read it here, run from it here. the .md at the bottom of the page is the same text, offline.
Folder: `training-needs-survey` · Category: feedback forms · any group · 15 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack License: CC BY 4.0
Most courses are built on what the trainer assumes the room needs. A training-needs survey moves the evidence up front: before you design a single slide, you ask the people who will sit there what they can do now, what they need to do, and where the gap hurts. This pack is the pre-course questionnaire that finds that gap.
Objectives
By the end of the activity, participants will have:
- Stated, in their own words, the honest starting line (can do now), the real target (need to do), and the consequence of the gap (where it costs them).
- Set the course agenda by cluster size — not by the trainer's hunch or the loudest voice in the list.
- Been promised, and later received, one line back before the course starts: "here is what we built because of your answers."
When to use this activity
- Before you design a course for a specific audience — while the answers can still change the plan.
- A mixed-level enrollment list where "beginner / intermediate / advanced" says nothing about what people need to do on Monday.
- Someone is paying for the training and asks how you knew it was needed — this questionnaire is the evidence.
Before you design, not after
Send it before enrollment closes, not after the agenda is fixed. The point is to change the plan, not to decorate it. If the design is already locked, you are collecting opinions you are obliged to ignore.
The three signals a TNA must produce
- Can do now — the honest starting line, not the job title.
- Need to do — the task that is actually waiting for the skill.
- Gap that hurts — the consequence, in their words. That consequence is your opening slide.
A survey that produces satisfaction ratings instead of these three has asked the wrong question.
Setup
Space: the survey runs before the room exists — by email or pre-course form; if there's no pre-course window, on cards at a discovery session.
Materials per person: the six prompt cards on the table (answers go on the card backs or the blanks) and a pen; in the online variant, the six items pasted into a form.
Materials for the room: nothing live — the output is a sorted stack you read before designing the first slide.
Grouping: the whole incoming cohort; every answer counts the same, cluster size beats volume.
Roles: respondents answer honestly under the promise that the agenda moves; you keep the items non-leading, keep the control card, and build from the largest cluster.
How to run it
| Time | Phase | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | Frame | Say the honest promise: the answers set the agenda, so vague answers get a vague course. |
| 2–12 | Answer | Six items — starting line, target, cost, urgency, support format, plus one control. Keep it short; a needs survey longer than ten minutes gets abandoned. |
| 12–15 | Sort | Cluster the gap answers. The largest cluster is your session; the outliers are your optional track. |
The card
Use the faces from `training-needs-survey-prop-cards.pdf`: a master card, six prompt cards — what you can do today, what you need to be able to do, where not being able to do it costs you, how soon you need it, what would actually help (demo / template / practice), and the control card asking what they enjoyed about the last training they took — a watch-out card, branded backs and blanks. The control face is not filler: it keeps the survey from reading like an interrogation and flags what the room already trusts.
Failure modes
- Leading items. If every question assumes they need your course, they will say they need it. Keep the control card.
- Designing to the loudest voice. One confident complainer is not a cohort. Go by cluster size, not volume.
- Collecting and locking. A needs survey whose results cannot move the agenda teaches people that honest pre-work is pointless.
Variations
- Pre-course form: paste the six items into an online form (the folder's FormLM block) and send it the moment enrollment opens; the sorting pass stays the same.
- First-session version: no pre-course window — run the cards in the opening 15 minutes and re-cut the afternoon around what comes back.
- Client variant: when a manager commissions training for a team, send the six items to the team and to the manager separately; the difference between the two stacks is the conversation to have first.
- Program level: keep the same six items across intakes; the migration of the clusters is your curriculum roadmap.
Facilitation notes
- Every item must allow the answer "I don't need this" — if it doesn't, you are not collecting need, you are collecting compliance.
- Cluster, count, then design: the biggest theme becomes the spine; outliers become the optional track, not the syllabus.
- Report one line back before the course: what you built because of the answers. The next cohort will hear that the survey is real.
Put it on the wall
Print `training-needs-survey-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to put the run of show, the six items and the three signals on one wall while you sort the answers.
Props in this folder
- `training-needs-survey-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): master card, six prompt cards including one control, a watch-out card, branded backs and blanks
- `training-needs-survey-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks (`-Letter.pdf` is US Letter)
- `training-needs-survey-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole survey on one A3 wall sheet
- `training-needs-survey-guide.md` · `-debrief.md` · `-start-here.md` — the facilitator guide, the sorting guide, the one-page start here
- `training-needs-survey-license.md` — what you may do
- `SKILL.md` · `training-needs-survey.zip` — the machine-readable manifest, and the whole folder in one download
Agent version
Every file in this folder has a stable public URL — an AI agent can fetch the prompt deck, the sorting guide and this run sheet with three curl commands (see `SKILL.md`), or lift the six items into a pre-course form. Run it before the agenda is fixed; that is the whole value.
the debrief sheet
// the debrief questions, in full — the .md version prints on one page for the room.
A needs survey is only worth its ink if it changes what you build. Here is how to read it. Use with `training-needs-survey-guide.md`. The sort at minutes 12–15 is the compressed version; this sheet is the full one.
How to run this debrief
- Group the free-text answers by theme first, then count; the biggest theme becomes the spine of the session.
- Pair every spine item with its cost line — "need to do X" plus "costs me Y" is a lesson; X alone is a topic.
- Send one line back to the room before the course: "here is what we built because of your answers." It is what makes the next survey honest.
Read the six items
- "What can you already do today?" — the starting line. Sets what you cut, not what you teach.
- "What do you need to be able to do?" — the target. Every session should land at least one answer from this box.
- "Where does not being able to do it cost you?" — the consequence. This is your opening hook, in the room's own words.
- "How soon do you need it?" — the priority signal. Soon-and-painful items go in the spine; someday items go in the optional track.
- "What would actually help — a demo, a template, or practice?" — the format. It tells you whether to teach, hand out, or run.
- Control: "What did you enjoy about the last training you took?" — a palate-cleanser. It keeps the survey from reading like an interrogation and flags what the room already trusts.
The four debrief questions
- Which cluster is big enough to be the spine — and what comes out of the draft to make room for it?
- Which asks are "someday"? They go to the optional track; they do not get syllabus time.
- What does the demo / template / practice split say about how this room wants to learn — did you draft it that way?
- What did the control card flag as already trusted — what can you inherit instead of invent?
Failure modes of the debrief
| Failure mode | Why it happens | The rescue |
|---|---|---|
| Designing to the loudest voice | One confident complainer reads as the cohort | Group by theme, then count; cluster size beats volume |
| Leading items | Every question presumes the course | Rewrite them to allow "I don't need this"; keep the control card |
| Answers that cannot move anything | The survey went out after the design locked | Run it before enrollment closes, or stop calling it a needs survey |
| Satisfaction read as need | Familiar and easy to tabulate | Only the three signals set the spine: can do now / need to do / gap that hurts |
What this is not
It is a design input, not a certified skills audit, and not a way to rank people before they start. It tells you what to build; it does not judge who is already good.
who it's for · what it leaves behind
When do I send a training-needs survey?
Before the agenda is locked — ideally before enrolment closes. The point is to change the plan. If the design is already fixed, you are only collecting opinions you are obliged to ignore.
How is this different from a satisfaction survey?
A satisfaction survey asks about a course that already happened. This asks about the gap before the course exists — what people can do now, what they need to do, and what the gap costs them — so the answers shape the session instead of rating it.
Do six items really cover it?
For design input, yes. Five prompts capture where people start, what they need, what the gap costs, how soon, and in what form; the sixth is a control that keeps the set from leading. Longer questionnaires get abandoned and the abandoned half cannot be sorted.
Can my AI agent use this folder?
Yes. The folder ships a SKILL.md with runnable prep — pull the poker prompt deck and the sorting guide, or lift the six items into your own pre-course form. All plain text, CC BY 4.0.
make it live
Run it on paper before the room, or send the link a week ahead — same items either way, and the rule holds: the results must move the agenda. Two ways to go live:
for AI agents
$ formlm-cli smart generate --input "Pre-training needs survey: can-do-now self rating, the task that needs doing, the gap that hurts in their own words, plus one control question that does not assume the course; the results must move the agenda."
Step 4 of the agent workflow: npm install -g @formlm/cli, log in once, and the prep above runs itself. The form and its data live in your own workspace.
— or, with a mouse —
Open the template on FormLM and paste the items from the guide — the template already collects responses anonymously.
// optional, not required — the paper version in this folder is complete on its own. free account on their side.
take this folder with you
// every file downloads as a plain file. no account, no email wall inside a folder.