Needs-Assessment Notes
A record of duties, audience, current skill level, training needs, role differences, and likely next-course requirements.
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Founder experience | Founder Record 2014-2017 | Operating Standards
From Field Lessons to Repeatable Operating Standards
A review of 12 source files documents how Sustainable Gaps founder Erik Herring helped government-requested field training improve from 2014 through 2017 by turning lessons into role-specific modules, practical exercises, readiness checks, and standards the next team could use across multiple countries.
- Record set
- 12 source files
- Time span
- 2014-2017
- Delivery reach
- 6 countries
The source folder included after-action reports, training-needs analysis, white-paper notes, and field-course summaries.
The records show the same review discipline appearing across several years, not as a one-time lesson.
Erik Herring delivered role-specific operational training across six countries while supporting federal international programs.
Deliverables
What the work produced.
Practical Exercise Design
Scenarios that required participants to design, explain, test, or demonstrate the work rather than only discuss it.
Role-Specific Adjustments
Course and operating recommendations shaped around who performed the duty and what daily conditions they faced.
Review and Critique Rhythm
Daily or end-of-event review notes that captured what worked, what drifted, and what needed correction in the next pass.
Technology Readiness Checks
Expectations for access, equipment, baseline knowledge, timing, and user grouping before technology training or rollout.
Reusable Operating Model
A next-version model that could be reused, adapted, and improved without depending on one person's memory.
Results and lessons
What the available record supports.
- The records show why useful training begins with the people, duties, tools, and conditions involved.
- The work was built for a federal counter-narcotics border-guard mission at the requesting government's direction, then refined through field feedback and after-action review.
- Role-specific delivery became a strength, not a complication, because different duties needed different language and practice.
- Practical exercises created better evidence of adoption than lecture, meeting memory, or slide review alone.
- After-action discipline turned lessons into a reusable operating model the next team could continue improving.
The challenge
What made the work difficult.
Teams often finish a training event, meeting, rollout, or field exercise with a list of impressions. The hard part is turning those impressions into a better operating standard before the same issue returns.
The event was not the finish line.
Across the records, the useful moment came after the module, exercise, technology session, or field review. That is when the team could see what matched the work, what missed the role, what needed more practice, and what should change before the next pass.
Some lessons were simple but costly if ignored: the wrong audience in the room, mixed skill levels, equipment not ready, too many topics, unclear terminology, or a process taught in a way that did not match the job people actually performed.
The pattern kept repeating in different forms.
One record pointed to the value of a needs assessment before designing the work. Another showed that practical exercises produced better learning than lecture alone. Another showed that mixed agencies or departments worked better when they were intentionally grouped, not allowed to stay in familiar silos.
Technology training created the same lesson from a different angle: software and equipment only helped when each participant had the right access, baseline knowledge, tools, timing, and role context.
The lesson became a standard.
The strongest output was not a longer report. It was a better next version: role-specific curriculum, practical exercises, instructor notes, readiness checks, equipment expectations, critique rhythm, and a clear handoff for future teams.
Across the record, after-action review was not paperwork. It was how experience became a better standard for the next team.
The approach
What was done next.
- 01
Start with the real duty
The review identified what each role actually did before assuming the same lesson, tool, or exercise matched every participant.
- 02
Separate shared from specialized
Core lessons stayed common where useful, while specialized duties received specific examples, terminology, and practice paths.
- 03
Use practical exercises
The work moved from lecture into scenarios, team design exercises, demonstrations, video, critique, and hands-on repetition.
- 04
Turn critique into the next standard
Lessons learned became readiness checks, course adjustments, grouping decisions, equipment expectations, and future review points.
Find the gap. Build the fix.
Could this experience help clarify a current situation?
Share one recent example from your organization. SG will determine which parts of this experience are relevant and explain whether an evaluation would be useful.