Before doing anything else, you must identify the purpose, or the desired outcome, of the training. Usually, training is designed to close a performance or knowledge gap possessed by employees or students. This gap is the difference between the current skills or knowledge of student and the skills or knowledge required of them. Identify what you want out of your training and then go from there to fill out the rest of your training objective list.  For example, imagine that your business must train a bookkeeper to record a new type of credit account being offered to customers. The purpose of the training is to train the bookkeeper such that they are capable of efficiently and accurately recording the new entries. The performance gap here would be that the bookkeeper already has knowledge of all of the business's other bookkeeping entries, but lacks the knowledge and skill to make the new type of entry. The task that will be taught during the training must be clearly defined. A written objective must contain an action verb that can be seen and measured. Use words that tell the student exactly what he or she must do, and avoid any language that might be ambiguous or subjective. For the previous example, the task would be to record the new accounting entries. An objective must include a description of circumstances. Provide details that describe under what conditions the task or tasks will take place. In other words, what must happen before the task needs to be completed? Include what tools and support might be used, including textbooks, forms, tutorials, and other conditions. If the task is outdoors, environmental conditions will need to be addressed. For the previous example, the conditions might be when a customer with the new account type makes a purchase. In addition, another condition might be that the bookkeeper must know how to record the entry in the business's accounting software. Describe what the student will be expected to achieve in order to have met the training objective. The minimal acceptable standards must be communicated in the written training objectives. Define how the standards will be measured and evaluated.  Standards will be performance goals, like doing a task in a set amount of time, getting a certain percentage of tasks right, or completing a certain number of tasks in a given time or at a certain magnitude. Training standards usually do not require a mastery or perfection of the task.  For the previous example, this would be not just the employee must record the entries, but must do so in an accurate and expedient manner.

Summary:
Identify the overall purpose of the training. Describe the expected performance. Explain the conditions under which the task will be performed. Set standards.