Training Poll - what course format do you prefer?

Some of you know that I'm in the training and mentoring business these days. For my in-house offerings I find it more effective and less disruptive to deliver training a little at a time. Example, for a three day course, delivering it as either six half-day sessions or one day per week for three weeks. Instead of three full days back-to-back-to-back.

I find this type of delivery allows less disruption of the ongoing work, plus a longer time-frame means you end up with a bit more a personal connection and a more relaxed atmosphere.

What about a public course? I've never heard of anyone doing this for open-enrollment courses, but it has a lot of the same advantages. The one obvious disadvantage is that it's hard to think that several different companies would have the same schedule over a several week period.

To me as the instructor, I don't much care which way it is delivered. What do you think, would one way be more popular than the other?

The training might be easier to digest in the smaller chunks, but the travel time and scheduling hassle for 6 half days would make it an unappealing option for me personally. I can easier justify and book off 3 full days, turn my phone off, and concentrate on the training at hand.

I'd rather do it all at once, but I'm a field guy. If I worked in town it might be nice to spread it out and look at it like a 4 day work week.

I should have specified that the kind of training I'm looking at would be aimed at people who work downtown, and it would be delivered downtown. Obviously the logistics would be impossible for anyone coming from the field.

Thanks to the seven people who have posted a response so far.

3 day in a row course for me. Just personal preference cause i like to get things over with fast and I have a bad memory and will forget things after a week and could fail if there's a test lol. 3 days crash course I will have no issues aceing it :).

Edit: I work DT in a OG company but do a lot of travelling.

One day at a time. I always want to kill myself on day 2 and it's way easier to miss one day a few weeks in a row instead of all that time in one week.

If there was more time between class you could also use supplemental readings to enhance the course. Voted spread out

As part of the professional organization I run we run a lot of courses. We find half day courses and a full day courses are about as much time anyone wants to take off work in the current environment.

I would think splitting it into 2 or 3 shorter training courses would be preferred by most companies.

I like the one and done course. Anything longer than a day tends to drag on. Take all the fluff out and deliver the material.

I really don't like the idea of an hour a week for X number of weeks though. As mentioned above, it's a logistics nightmare.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Feruk
I like the one and done course. Anything longer than a day tends to drag on. Take all the fluff out and deliver the material.

I really don't like the idea of an hour a week for X number of weeks though. As mentioned above, it's a logistics nightmare.

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Could you break it into Part 1, 2, and 3 that are offered as single days, different registration?
Then I can choose to do 3 days in a row, one day a week, one day every other week, etc.

I just attended a 1.5 day strategy offsite that was facilitated by an executive coach, and I had some feedback that I will pass on to you. Personally, and across the board for all 7 people in the attendance, everyone preferred the 'all at once' and offsite 'no distractions' way of doing it. but, also unanimously people wanted to have more set breaks to check email, make phone calls etc. the idea is that we were happy to be 100% focused and dedicated during the activities, but wanted more opportunities to shift our focus to our jobs. we had a 30 minute break over lunch and that was it, but this would be ideal IMO:

- 5 minute break at the top of every hour (washroom break, email check, stretch, etc) - it's ok if these get pushed out by 5-10 minutes if you are in a particular groove or want to finalize a topic.

- 1 hour lunch

- an extended 10-15 minute break every 2 or 3 hours.

Thanks timdog. That's always part of my plans, and I will make sure my other presenters understand the importance of breaks as well.