How doing a needs analysis?

To understand their current situation in terms of inclusion, an NA needs to focus on the following puzzle pieces:

• Your mission - On a global level, what is it that you are working towards? The mission of the Youth in Action programme and the specific aims related to inclusion are already defined for National Agencies but what, specifically, does your NA want to work towards in inclusion and what do you concretely hope to achieve?
• Your past performance - In terms of inclusion, what has your NA concretely achieved to date? To what extent have you successfully been inclusive? To what extent have you successfully contributed to inclusion? Can you spot any significant trends? What has been the role of key players within the NA? What types of challenges or difficulties have you faced in the past? Did your NA have an earlier version of an inclusion strategy? Were those objectives achieved? Why or why not?
• Your internal systems and processes - Are your systems as effective as they could be? This is a crucial area because much of the work with young people with fewer opportunities is dependent on efficient systems. An NA has many areas to consider: processes related to promotion and recruitment, processes related to selection, processes related to the distribution of finances, processes related to evaluation and follow-up, etc.
• Your key external stakeholders - In the field of inclusion the range of external stakeholders is very broad but nevertheless NAs need to have some information about the circumstances, needs and expectations of each specific group. Understand their circumstances and expectations. What is their motivation for taking part in Youth in Action? What are their biggest needs at this time? What are they looking for from you? To what extent have you successfully fulfilled those expectations?
• Your competitors - yes, even National Agencies have competitors and yes, they even exist in the field of inclusion. What are other organisations or institutions working on inclusion doing? Do they offer activities or services similar to those in Youth in Action? What is their strategy? What are they trying to achieve? Who are their focus groups? How might their inclusion work affect yours?
• Socio-economic trends and changes - social, economical and political changes usually affect the most vulnerable groups in society first. Any major shifts or trends in this area will likely have a big impact on an NA's inclusion work. What is going on locally, regionally and/or nationally? How this might impact the young people and project promoters you work with?

Reviewing your "mission" for inclusion on national level will remind you of the direction you have taken in the past. Reviewing your past performance and your internal systems will highlight your strengths and weaknesses. Reviewing the needs of your key stakeholders, the activities of your competitors and current socio-economic trends will indicate where you can find new opportunities as well as potential threats to your inclusion work.

By collecting the information in each of these separate areas you are painting a picture of what is going on in and around your NA right this moment. This tells you exactly where you are in terms of inclusion and what your starting point is ("here today"). Not all the information you collect will be positive but remember that to really know your situation, you have to be objective. You are looking for the cold hard truth.

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Narrowing the field

NAs face a unique challenge in the needs analysis phase. On one hand, they must try to gain a deep insight into their overall situation in terms of their inclusion work. On the other hand, the range of profiles that fall under the term "inclusion" is so broad that is almost impossible to know all the needs and wishes of each separate profile in detail.

Some NAs have solved this problem by choosing to concentrate on a specific target group. In the strategic context, a target group is one distinct profile within the larger group of young people with fewer opportunities. Some examples of target groups chosen by NAs in the past include:

• young women from ethnic backgrounds (UK)
• disabled young people (Poland)
• young people in vocational training programmes (Germany)
• young offenders (Estonia).
  

Identifying one or more specific target groups in the needs analysis makes it much easier for the NA to narrow down the field of external stakeholders and to gain a true insight into that group's situation. This in turn makes it easier to develop a strategic plan which can respond to the group's specific needs.

In the past, National Agencies have concentrated on such target groups for periods of anywhere from 1 to 4 years. Note that it is not possible for an NA to identify priority groups within the inclusion field, as this would imply that certain groups receive special treatment at the expense of others. Balancing the need to treat all profiles equally with the need to bring coherence into the inclusion strategy can be a delicate balancing act but it is possible.

Needs Analysis in the UK
In the past, the British Council (NA UK) has experimented with the concept of a needs analysis specifically within Action 2 (European Voluntary Service). Using the European-level inclusion strategy as a guideline, the team looked at the current happenings within the UK on political level. This highlighted which groups of young people were experiencing urgent problems. On this basis the team determined which groups the NA would target. To get to know the needs of the targeted groups, the NA co-operated with organisations working directly with these profiles by initiating dialogue, by organising workshops to better understand the difficulties and by closely assessing pilot projects run with these young people.

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Methods / techniques to use in a needs analysis

The individual puzzle pieces which make up your needs analysis can be obtained by using a variety of techniques. It is important for NAs to use different methods because you are searching for different types of feedback from different sources. In a needs analysis, one size definitely does not fit all!

Some possible methods include:

• Questionnaires - an inexpensive way to gather data from a potentially large number of respondents (they also allow for a statistical analysis of the results)
• Surveys - good tools for measuring levels of satisfaction, either internally or among your clients.
• Statistics - a treasure trove of information. How many participants? How many projects? How many new clients? How many staff hours? Etc.
• Interviews - allow you to gather more in-depth information from a specific group of candidates
• Small group discussions - a semi-formal way to explore issues within a mixed group (mixed functions, mixed profiles, etc.)
• Focus groups - a small group of candidates selected to represent a much larger group, usually sharing some specific characteristics of a defined profile.
• Task and/or systems analysis - a way to examine systems and activities which are carried out consistently and repeatedly (e.g. the process involved in selecting project applications)
  

These are just some examples. Each of these methods has its own strengths and weaknesses. Not every method is suited to every situation so it is useful to combine different techniques whenever possible. Mixing methods ensures that the resulting feedback is as comprehensive and meaningful as possible. It will also reduce the possibility of missing key issues.

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Summarising the outcomes

As the needs analysis progresses, it is likely that the NA will collect a large amount of information. The NA needs to make sense out of all the different outcomes by pulling out the elements which are the most valuable or which will have the most impact on future inclusion activities.

A useful tool for this process is a SWOT summary. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. A SWOT summary is ideal in the final phase of a needs analysis because it presents a concise overview of the most important positive and negative points to come out of your research.

SWOT summary

Strenghts -what has been going well in our inclusion work - what is the NA good at?	Weaknesses - what has nto been going well in our inclusion work? - what resources or skills is the NA missing?
Opportunities - which new target groups can be intersting for us to work with? - what new laws, legislation or social trends offer us exciting new chances?	Threats - which inclusion activities/services are being duplicated by our competitors? - which socio-economic or political trends might negatively affect us, our project promotors or the young people?

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With all the information from questionnaires, surveys, focus groups and statistics staring you in the face it is easy to feel intimidated but the procedure is quite simple:

• Draw up a SWOT table according to the outline above. Use the sample questions in the outline to help you decide which key elements from your analysis belong under which heading. Remember that strengths and weaknesses refer to what you can control inside your organisation (internal elements) while opportunities and threats refer to forces beyond your control outside your organisation (external elements).
• Select the most obvious or urgent points for each heading (try to limit yourself to a maximum of 10 points per category). Agree these points within the strategy team.
• Present the SWOT summary along with the supporting information to the Head of the NA (or the Board of Directors) for their approval.

Once you have reached agreement on the priorities within your strategy team and have approval from the director there is one last step. Before you use the summary as the basis for the Planning phase, show it to your key stakeholders. The most important of these for an NA are, of course, the project promoters but this group also includes members of your own staff as well as other important external parties. This is a way of double-checking your conclusions. Your stakeholders can point out any areas which may have been misinterpreted or which are already being addressed.

It is very much in your interest to take this last step in the needs analysis process. Your stakeholders will not only feel respected, they will gain more insight into your situation. Understanding your summary makes them more likely to "approve" it as well. In this way you can feel confident that your final plan will be truly "client-oriented".

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Do's and Don'ts in the Analysis phase

When it comes to the Analysis phase, there are some danger areas that should be kept in mind. These traps are easy to fall into and can have serious consequences for your strategy over the long term.

Do's and Don'ts in the Analysis Phase

Don't	Do
Try to skip the Analysis phase	See the Analysis as way to make an inventory of your current situation and as a way to establish the baseline against which the results of your strategy will be measured.
Assume you already know the outcome	Take time to hear the views of other stakeholders.
Overlook key information sources	Ask stakeholders for their recommendations on where to look, what to read, who you should speak to, etc.
Overlook personal bias	Make sure the information you collect is reviewed by a variety of stakeholders.
Disregard or disbelieve unpleasant facts	Use the facts to make changes or improvements if necessary.
Accept incomplete data	Strive to compile as complete a picture of your situation as possible.
Be too quick to interpret results	Focus on gathering rather than interpreting information in this phase.
Collect so much data that you feel overwhelmed	Manage information you have gathered by using the "So what?" test. If the answer is "So nothing", the information is not important. Disregard it and move on.

If you run into difficulties in the Analysis phase, take a step back, relax, catch your breath and then give it another try. An inclusion strategy can only stand the test of time if it is built on a good foundation, so it is vital that your analysis is a solid as possible. Taking time to ensure that your needs analysis is done thoroughly is definitely time well spent.

It will have taken you some time, but when the ink has dried on your SWOT summary and you have the approval of both your boss and your clients, the NA can say with certainty

Where am I now? I am HERE.

Whatever you do... don't let down your guard!! Never assume that you have everything right. Review your gathered information regularly as it has a big impact on your planning and implementation.

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