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Hi Reader,
A newer writer in WriteCME Pro recently asked a simple question: How long should a needs assessment actually take? She’d just finished her first, and it took far longer than expected.
I can relate. My first needs assessment way back in the early 2000s took me about 80 hours and at least 8 drafts (yikes!). Other writers in our community have had similar experiences, but over time have whittled the time down to between 15-25 hours.
That drop in hours isn’t just talent. It’s process.
Where the hours go
Most of the time invested in that first needs assessment is spent on three things:
- Falling into research rabbit holes with no clear stopping point
- Drafting a narrative before clarifying the core argument
- Building gaps, root causes, and learning objectives that don’t fully align
Experienced writers don’t skip any of this work. They just do it in a different order.
Order and process matter more than ever because clients request needs assessments on increasingly compressed timelines. The standard turnaround time for a needs assessment is around 10 business days, but some clients ask for delivery in 5 days. That's not a lot of time to:
- Create therapeutic landscape tables
- Search, validate, and synthesize credible evidence and root causes
- Develop an agenda, offer faculty suggestions, and craft patient cases.
Without a process, a rushed timeline adds stress to your day and potentially weakens the story you're developing to support your client's request for funding.
A 10-day needs assessment, step by step
Day 1: Kickoff call. Confirm the audience, the format and what the client is providing. Then ask two questions:
- Why is the client responding to this RFP?
- If the RFP lists a dozen requests, which ones matter most?
Some RFPs are unfocused, and the client’s answer tells you where to spend your hours. Experienced CME professional Kristen Dascoli goes a step further. She reads the supporter’s earnings call transcripts and grant transparency reports to see what they’re funding now.
Days 2–4: Research the gap between is and ought. Start with what guidelines recommend, then find evidence of what’s actually happening in practice. Beyond clinical trial data, look for three kinds of evidence:
- Performance metrics, such as the percentage of patients who get guideline-recommended screening
- Surveys of the clinicians who are the main audience for the activity
- Qualitative studies, which give you clinicians’ own words about where practice breaks down
Log every source in a table as you go. Give yourself a fixed amount of time to follow interesting tangents, then stop searching once new sources stop changing your argument.
Day 5: Build the alignment table. Use four columns: Gap → Education Need → Learning Objective → Anticipated Outcome.
Before you fill in the Need column, ask why the gap persists. A diagnostic delay might look like the gap, but the cause may be scheduling, communication or patchy results follow-up. Keep asking “why?” until you reach something education can change.
Days 6–9: Write from the table. The narrative now explains decisions you’ve already made.
Day 10: Verify and deliver. Check every reference against the claim it supports. If you’re also drafting the agenda, test each section against three A’s before you send it:
- Aligned: does it support an objective?
- Actionable: will learners know what to do differently?
- Appropriate: is the depth right for this audience?
🧰 Tool spotlight: Next Level Needs Assessment Toolkit
Every step above comes from the toolkit I built for this process. Inside you’ll find:
- A needs assessment template
- Gap table formats
- Gap Analysis Framework
- A root cause analysis primer
- The Insight-to-Action framework for turning a needs assessment into an agenda
- A project management checklist that keeps research bounded
- A library of real RFPs, needs assessment examples, and evidence sources
👉 Get the Needs Assessment Toolkit
How long did your first needs assessment take? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Warmly,