As a new Training Development Officer (TDO) in the Canadian military, I was told by the more experienced officers to build my own “TDO Toolkit”. This was to be a selection of templates and job aids to help me with my future employment. TDO’s were mostly responsible for ensuring quality control of training programs, and many of us worked as the lone training specialist in an organisation.

Much of my work involved the development of new job specifications, followed by the creation of training standards for personnel who worked on some aspect of our newly purchased helicopter.

One of the tools that we used was DIF (difficulty, importance, frequency) analysis in determining if we needed to develop training on a specific task. In my first year on the helicopter project, I had to examine several hundred tasks for training suitability. The diagram below shows you a quick & dirty way that this can be done. This is the simple diagram, and there is also a more detailed version that we used, which I can post if there is any interest.

This diagram surfaced as I was preparing a proposal and I thought that someone else might want it for their toolkit. I’ll post some more as I get some time to create digital graphics in SmartDraw.