New training requests, existing programmes, and competing priorities can quickly fill an L&D plan. Finding time to investigate the underlying problems and agree what needs to improve takes more deliberate work.
These three AI prompts help you review your objectives, draft a focused Training Needs Analysis and decide where to continue, reshape or stop existing work. Each produces a draft you can discuss with stakeholders before committing resources.
They are part of our AI prompts for L&D outcomes collection. Use them with your organisation’s approved AI tool, replacing the bracketed fields with relevant information and checking the response against your evidence.
Give your objectives the ‘So what?’ test
Launching a training programme or increasing course completions describes work taking place. The intended change in workplace performance can still be unclear.
Kallidus calls this The Activity Trap: measuring learning activity without establishing what changed for people, customers or the business. Reviewing your objectives is a useful place to start addressing it.
“I’ve spent 13 years watching brilliant L&D teams lose credibility because they couldn’t connect what they do to what the business cares about,” said Harry Chapman-Walker, CEO of Kallidus.
This prompt helps you turn existing objectives into a small number of priorities with a clear purpose, an accountable owner and a way to assess progress.
What to gather: Your current L&D objectives and the organisational priorities they should support.
Copy and paste this prompt:
Challenge these L&D objectives using the question: “What changes for our people, customers or business if we achieve this?”
Objectives: [paste].
Organisational priorities: [insert].
Identify objectives that describe activity without a clear result. Rewrite the strongest ones into a maximum of three priorities, specifying the affected group, desired workplace change, relevant business KPI, baseline, target, timeframe and accountable owner.
Explain the connection between learning and each outcome. Mark unknown baselines and targets as “to agree”; do not invent them. Recommend which objective we should tackle first and why.
How to use the response: Review the proposed priorities with the people responsible for the business result. Check whether the suggested measures are relevant and available, and agree any missing baselines or targets. Treat the proposed connection between learning and performance as something to investigate.
Draft a Training Needs Analysis
A business problem gives a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) a clear starting point. Understanding what needs to improve, who is affected and what evidence is available helps L&D focus its investigation.
A useful TNA also considers whether knowledge or skills contribute to the problem. Unclear procedures, unsuitable equipment, limited resources or inconsistent manager support may need attention.
This prompt helps you organise the evidence, identify questions to investigate and draft appropriate recommendations.
What to gather: The business problem, affected roles or teams, available performance evidence, previous training and any practical constraints.
Copy and paste this prompt:
Draft a focused Training Needs Analysis to investigate this business problem.
Business problem and desired improvement: [insert].
Affected roles or teams and workplace context: [insert].
Available evidence, including relevant performance data and previous training: [paste].
Stakeholders, timeframe and constraints: [insert].
Start by summarising the problem, the desired workplace change and the business measure we could use to assess improvement. Mark unknown baselines and targets as “to agree”.
Consider possible causes involving knowledge, skills, processes, equipment, resources, incentives and manager support. Separate established evidence from hypotheses.
Produce a concise draft TNA containing:
– A prioritised table of potential capability needs, affected groups, supporting evidence and remaining uncertainties.
– Diagnostic questions to ask, who to involve and how to gather the missing evidence.
– Observable examples of the performance required.
– Recommended learning responses where the evidence supports them, alongside actions needed from other functions.
– A proportionate plan for checking whether workplace behaviour and the relevant business measure improve.
Explain the priority order and finish with the decisions stakeholders need to make. Treat unverified capability gaps as provisional; do not assume that creating a course is the answer.
How to use the response: Use the draft to guide conversations, observations and further evidence gathering. Check the proposed capability needs with employees and managers doing the work. Agree who will investigate unresolved questions and who owns any actions outside L&D.
Decide what L&D should STOP doing
L&D’s workload often grows one request at a time. Existing programmes stay on the calendar while new priorities arrive, leaving little capacity to investigate what is making a difference.
Reviewing those commitments can create room for work with a clearer business purpose. That means considering strategic relevance, available evidence, effort and the consequences of changing a programme, while protecting mandatory obligations.
This prompt helps you prepare recommendations for that discussion.
What to gather: Your portfolio of programmes, time commitments, costs, available results, business priorities and mandatory requirements.
Copy and paste this prompt:
Review our L&D portfolio and help us create capacity for work with a clearer business purpose.
Portfolio, time commitments, costs and available results: [paste].
Business priorities and mandatory commitments: [insert].
Recommend which initiatives to continue, redesign, investigate, pause or stop. Explain each recommendation using strategic relevance, evidence, effort and consequences. Treat missing evidence as uncertainty.
Protect mandatory obligations. Show how the capacity released could support one focused initiative, including the stakeholder conversation needed before changing commitments.
How to use the response: Examine the reasoning behind each recommendation. A programme with limited evidence may need investigation before a decision can be made. Discuss proposed changes with its stakeholders, confirm any obligations and agree how released capacity would be used.
Turn your priorities into action
Bring the drafts together with your stakeholders. Agree the problem to address, the evidence still needed, who owns each action and what capacity is available.
When you are ready to plan development, explore our AI prompts for personal and team development plans. To agree how you will assess the result, use our AI prompts for measuring training effectiveness.
Kallidus intelligence, or K.i, connects learning, skills and performance data around your business goals, helping you identify development priorities and pursue improvements in risk, retention, productivity and revenue.
Or return to the full AI prompts for L&D outcomes collection.
Jace Allred
