I have found that there are times when elearning is not the ideal method for training a large group of users. The natural alternative is live-training events (also known as instructor-led training).

However, those too have their limitations.

First, they are quite expensive. You will need to find a physical location for the training, instructors, logistics (such as travel and accommodations), equipment, printed materials, and more.

This adds up pretty quick.

Adding to the difficulty of instructor-led training is number and location of the target audience.

If you have thousands of people that need to be trained who are dispersed across the world then you will need a massive budget and about a year to get everything properly planned.

So what’s the alternative?

When faced with this scenario there is a third alternative that costs less than live training but can be more effective than elearning (depending on the execution).

That solution is virtual-led training.

Virtual-led training is its own animal to some degree. You have challenges that you normally don’t have when administering live training that have to be taken into consideration.

The infographic above (created by mclabs) details five critical success factors to virtual-led training initiatives.

You will notice an underlying theme across all the factors: preparation.

The same could be true with instructor-led training events, but for virtual training preparation is absolutely essential. In particular, you need to be adequately prepared to support the virtual learners (which is no easy task).

In my experience, I find that a combination of elearning and virtual-led training will yield the best results.

You can prepare learners for the virtual sessions by having short introductory elearning courses prior to the event. This keeps everything on-point during the virtual session so that there is little to no wasted time.