As part of a project to develop a planning guide to assist local vocational education administrators in improving their planning efforts, a needs assessment questionnaire was developed to identify the degree of need for assistance in planning activities. Two hundred sixty-four Missouri local vocational administrators completed the pilot-tested survey, which was designed to collect data on eight major planning needs areas: establishing local vocational goals and objectives, acquiring and using external and internal data for planning, analyzing the costs and benefits of vocational program activities, identifying resources available to institutions, using data in short- and long-term planning, engaging in specialized planning to meet accountability/compliance mandates, establishing effective working relationships with various organizations in planning; and administrator personal and situational characteristics (academic attainment, administrative and teaching experience, other work experience, and institutional type). After incorporating survey findings and data from a literature review, a draft planning guide was written and field tested. (The survey instrument and breakdowns of survey responses according to administrator background variables are appended.) (MN)