Analysis is the beginning point of instructional design.  In fact, the instructional design process, also known as ADDIE, begins with the "analysis" step.  It contributes to each stage of the instructional design process and it helps when designing and developing ideas. Analysis helps to determine what performance gaps are present, which process to use to fix the gap, determine what skills, knowledge, and attitudes are needed in order to efficiently perform the job and it also helps in determining what resources (or restraints) there are in order to fix the performance gap.