The future of human performance technology (HPT) will be bright or dismal depending on how well HPT practitioners focus on careful and practical answers to three pivotal questions: What is good practice in human performance technology? What are the differences between good practice and bad? What are the connections between good research and exemplary practice? The answers to all three questions involve two fundamental units of analysis: the three-term contingency and the Total Performance System. Examples in this article show what a unit of analysis is, why the two units are important, and how both should guide analysis, design, and implementation efforts. The future of HPT will be bright only if these units of analysis are used more often and more explicitly. (Contains 2 figures.)