One of the chief benefits of booking in-house (on-site) training, as opposed to sending your people off to a training centre to attend a pubic course, is that the training can be customised to suit the specific needs of your organisation. When booking in-house training courses, be sure to make this clear to the training company and brief them fully on your requirements. Produce a list of key topics that need to be covered after discussing the matter with the people who will be attending the course, their manager or someone in your organisation who already has the skills the trainees are looking to acquire.

Send examples of your work to the training company, before the training, so that they have a good idea of the kind of documents your guys will need to create or edit (Make sure that you remove any sensitive or confidential information!).

Every good software training session offers users opportunities to practice the skills they are learning. Ask the training company to include your company's documents into all practical exercises given to delegates during the training. For example, if your trainees are learning how to create corporate brochures, have the trainer show them how to create pages from some of your typical brochures during the course to verify that everyone is mastering the most important techniques.

You will need to find a suitable area where you can realistically conduct a training session and where the trainees can concentrate on learning without interruption, distraction or discomfort. If your organisation does not have a training room then a meeting room can be adapted for the purpose. Delegates should be able to see the trainer from their seat without having to twist around or crane their necks. Each delegate should also have the use of their own workstation or laptop for the duration of the course and enough space to use it.

The correct version of the software should be loaded on each person's machine and, ideally, all delegates should be using the same version of the software. For example, running a course on Microsoft Word where some delegates have Word 2007 and others 2003 would be a nightmare, since the two versions have such key differences.)

A workstation or laptop connected to a screen projector for use by the trainer is not essential but is extremely useful, especially with a large group (say, more than half a dozen people). If your company does not own one, they can be hired for around 25 per day. A whiteboard and pens are also very handy.

For your training to be effective, all staff must be available for the entire duration of the course and must not be interrupted by other members of staff. Ideally, they should be treated as absent from the office until their training ends. Equally importantly, they should be motivated to do the training and be shown how it will benefit them and enable them to work more effectively.