My manager and I are considering paying for training courses for our team + possibly some engineers from other teams from a company whose technology is important to us. Our team isn't as skilled as we should be with their tech. It's been a pain to hire for people who are good at this. It'll be either 4 or 8 hrs and a 'pre-packaged' course.

In another case, there's an independent contractor / consultant who comes highly recommended who is willing and able to hold a series of sessions with our team and tune the material and focus on our needs. It'll probably be between 8-16 hours total with some flexibility.

It's not clear to me whether this kind of thing is worth it. In the first case, it'll be a 'pre-packaged' course. In the latter, it'll be an instructor who is genuinely very skilled and knowledgeable about the entire space of technologies, but costs ~3-5x.

Anyone have experiences with this kind of training?

Thanks.