Adoption of formal Training Needs Analysis (TNA) in the Royal Navy (RN) followed an investigation by the UK National Audit Office (NAO) into the use of simulators in training. The NAO report, released in 1992, recommended the implementation of rigorous methods for assessing the effectiveness of training solutions across the UK Armed Forces. Now in common use, TNA is the single methodology recommended by the UK MOD Acquisition Management System for determining the most cost-effective methods of meeting training requirements.

The aim of this paper is to research and expose the ways in which the RN, through its published guidance on the conduct of TNA, has sought to fulfil the requirements of the NAO report. In particular, the Author will investigate and justify the importance awarded to auditability and objectivity, common threads to the evolving TNA methodology, and conduct a review of existing metrics employed in TNA. This review will explore the utility of metrics, based on evidence from RN TNA, and will present a set of lessons learnt from the implementation of quantification techniques. Thus the Author will attempt to set the limits of achievable objectivity throughout TNA and seek to disprove the commonly-held misconception that auditability is confined exclusively to the domain of metrics.

The paper will conclude with recommendations formulated to assist TNA practitioners strike an objectivity balance, which seeks to avoid reliance on metrics alone. The Author's recommendations will be placed in context of the RN's latest guidance on TNA, which seeks to redress the balance generated by earlier over-prescription of quantification. In this way, a practicable approach for addressing the objectivity/subjectivity equilibrium will be presented, enabling the training analyst to generate more timely, meaningful and reliable information in support of the acquisition process.