hose who captain ships at sea rely on a lighthouse beacon to mark a safe path to the journey's end. The bright, flashing light mounted on a tall tower that is visible over the horizon also reveals underwater areas that are too risky, too shallow, or too dangerous for safe passage. The lighthouse beacon for human learning, training, and performance improvement initiatives-whether labeled as needs analysis, needs assessment, or some other term-is a type of evaluation that lights the path for completing an initiative and reveals places that are too risky, dangerous, or shallow for safe passage. Such analysis takes more time and planning than simply moving forward to implement solutions; it does, however, avoid costly mistakes and greatly increases the likelihood of an initiative's success.
Indeed, evaluation expertise applied at the beginning of a project to assess needs (predictive analysis) may provide a higher return on investment than the evaluation expertise that is applied after a project is completed (summative evaluation) . Such analysis can link learning and performance improvement expertise to an organization's strategic needs, its mission and goals, and the perceived issues. For a useful visual of this linkage, see the Pershing Performance Analysis Model .