How to choose a training course worth taking

I was going to drop this topic altogether, but Filemon talked me out of it, and the whole thing has left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. I won't tell you who trained me or at what company, because I don't think that would be fair. I can share a few observations on choosing a training course without getting burned.

In-house training

In my years in the industry I've attended quite a few courses, both external and in-house. The main advantage of in-house training is that you know who's teaching and what exactly the course is about. Nobody at your company, I hope, is going to butter you up or distract you with marketing tricks, because then your attendance would be purely social, as Arnošt likes to say. It's in the company's interest to use your time well, so I don't think there's much risk of that.

As I mentioned, the second factor is the instructor. You know most of your colleagues, 
 so you can judge whether it will be worthwhile. As ever, 
 training courses vary. Some people prepare carefully and make the subject accessible 
 to most of the participants. Others turn up with the back of a tea packet and shower you with words,
 but at the end you feel as though they've said nothing.

External training

External courses are less transparent. They usually start with a catchy title,
 a lure for the inexperienced, and the course description follows much the same pattern. It's 
 understandable. Everyone wants to get as much out of their investment as they can. The other 
 unknown is the instructor. You usually know nothing about them. You can't put a face to the name and have no idea whose teaching style you'll get on with.

The best case is probably when the instructor is reasonably well known, 
 so you have some idea in advance. That worked out for me once with a course
 by Jiří Kosek. I consider the instructor at least as important as
 the course content, which can be skewed by all sorts of factors.

Course content

What the syllabus promises and what you actually cover can be
 quite different. External courses in particular can take you by surprise. Imagine
 going on a course on driving a truck and someone starts explaining how to shift gears in a car. That's more the fault of an instructor who can't gauge the audience's level, and sometimes misses by a mile.

A lack of practical experience on the instructor's part can be worse. External training isn't 
 some cheap outing your company sent you on to see the big city, and it should never be 
 a crash course that simply crams facts into you. As one manager once told me, 
 you might be able to study the material yourself, but training is also an opportunity to exchange 
 practical views and gain experience. Often an instructor beats you over the head with some hackneyed example or won't go into detail, which is a shame.

Cost and what you get out of it

As I said, external courses usually aren't cheap. I'd say 
 a more expensive course doesn't necessarily teach you more. Think carefully 
 about whether 20,000 Czech crowns for two days is a bit much and whether it's really
 worth it. As ienik told me, imagine that money coming out of your own pocket.
 I'd say that, if you can, it's almost better to organize in-house training
 and bring in someone who works in the field, so you can more easily agree on what you need.

What I get out of training is my measure of its value. It's
 a subjective assessment of what I learned, and of course it depends on what I expected 
 and how well prepared I was. Say you're going to a course on
 design patterns, and you know the subject and expect to deepen 
 your knowledge. Then I'd say that 40–50% new information 
 is an excellent result and the course 
 was worthwhile.

When you're deciding whether to attend a course or send someone
 who reports to you, consider these criteria.

• Think about whether you could run the course in-house.
• Find out about the instructor.
• Weigh the course content against the time and cost.