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Which form of training is best? Neither, I think.

With e-learning, the attention wanders, Outlook flashes incoming messages, some auto-update thingy on the PC comes to life and it’s over.

In-class learning is a little better because we learn not only from the trainer but also from the discussion. But how many of us really remember what was discussed a week after we come back from the training?

Ironically, the last time I had an effective learning experience was on-line but it wasn’t an e-learning course. It was a series of exercises where at each step you had to add a level of complexity to a working piece of software and get it doing more things. Two-3 hours later, you had a fairly complex piece of software and you looked at it and said, wow!

My most effective classroom training situation was a management training course where teams were given a hypothetical company to run. Every few hours, we had to make decisions about actions to take, those actions had consequences on the hypothetical company, the external circumstances changed, and you had a new set of problems to deal with. Whichever team showed the best EBITDA at the end of 3 days won!

Whether the training is on-line or in person is the wrong question. The effectiveness of the training is determined by how much effort has gone into constructing it, how much fun you can make it, and the wow factor at the end.

If you want your team trained, and trained well, and trained so they know the material forever after, find inspired training.