Public course vs in-house cohort: which one for your team

Both formats teach the same skills. The difference is context, cost per head, and how much the content can be shaped around your work.

When a public course fits

• You have one or two people who need a skill, not a whole team.
• The skill is fairly standard — the way you’d use it isn’t unusual.
• You want people to meet peers from other organisations and compare notes.
• You need it soon and don’t have time to organise a private session.

The trade-off: the examples are generic, the pace is set for the average of the room, and you can’t use your own files or processes as the material.

When an in-house cohort fits

• You have six or more people who need the same skill.
• You want the training built around your actual work — your reports, your tools, your terminology.
• You care about the team applying it together afterwards, with shared templates and a common approach.
• Cost per person matters: past roughly six people, a private session is usually cheaper per head than public seats.

The trade-off: it takes a bit more planning, and you need enough people to fill a cohort.

A simple rule

Under three people: public course. Six or more with a shared need: in-house. In between: depends on how specific your use of the skill is — the more particular, the more an in-house session earns its cost.