Everything I needed to know about training, I learned in stand-up comedy.
Just because it's funny to you doesn't mean it's gonna kill
The only way to make training perfect is to deliver it, evaluate it, and rework it. You can't make it perfect before you deliver it because training is always developed based on what we want the users to know and not on what the users need.
Starting out in comedy means that you have to do open mics. The majority of your audience at that stage in your content development is other comics. The mistake a lot of newcomers make is that they want desperately to make someone (anyone!) laugh, so they start writing material that other comics will think is funny instead of using the time for what it is - experience delivering and perfecting the joke. Open mics are peer reviews and just like in training, the best compliment is when a peer, another presenter, comes up afterwards, shakes your hand and tells you one of your bits was good.
Many times trainers develop content that is interesting to them and because we've been in the technology longer than our end users, the things we like are well beyond the level of what our users need. Or worse, they deliver content to impress their boss and show everyone in the audience how much they know. If you get comments like 'slow down,' 'I should have been in a more basic class,' or 'this was way over my head,' then you failed. Stop criticising the audience and start looking at your training objectives. In the end, your users are just trying to get through their day. Go for the most common objectives and resist the urge to write extreme content.
Starving artists want it more
If you have another job, you will never be taken seriously as a stand-up comedian and it will be a lot harder for you to get work as a performer. Like any other small business, you are selling your product and you have to do that during business hours. You have to be willing to travel to some horrible places for a gig and you have to give yourself the time to write new material. In the same way, the people who are delivering training for you must be out there in front of people all the time. You cannot expect them to be successful as a trainer if you don't think it's a real job for them and you insist that they must work on other projects while trying to develop content.
In the same way, it is a special kind of person who opts for this lifestyle. Comedy doesn't pay particularly well when it pays at all just like training reaps very few professional rewards. Trainers are rarely promoted or even consulted when project teams are making decisions regarding the budget for a roll out. If money was set aside for training, the trainer isn't the one deciding how to spend it. Even though they are expected to train everyone all by themselves for nothing more than the cost of their salary, like any artist, they do it because they love it.
Comedy defensive driving isn't really that funny
Users have an expectation coming into training that they are going to learn how to do something that will make a difference in their day-to-day office life just like audiences come to a comedy show expecting to laugh. If you don't deliver on their expectations, then they have every right to claim it was a waste of their time and money. Think long and hard before you make training required.
Required training is like punishing someone for a speeding ticket. No matter how good you make it, people still don't want to be there and probably don't think that they did anything wrong to begin with. You can't target a required audience. Respect that and make it as short and painless as possible. If you can make it funny, that helps but it's still not going to please everyone until it's over.
Never break character
Don't bring bitterness into the classroom or allow a heckler to steal the show. It is okay to call the audience out for not laughing or thinking that something you just showed them is really cool, but don't ever derail your message by acting like you don't buy into the joke. Good presenters need to be witty and know the content well enough that they can ad lib to answer a user question. Either that, or they need to be so obviously new that the audience is rooting for them.
New trainers are great for a fundamental class because they will go slow which is the pace that first-timers need. Don't hesitate to put someone in front of an audience who doesn't have a lot of experience presenting because a targeted audience will identify with them. However, in an open enrollment situation where anyone could be in the audience, you need a seasoned pro up there who is not afraid to take a critical question offline. Whatever your style is, commit to it and don't be afraid to control the crowd. Training is a safe place for unhappy people to test the organization's commitment to change. Deliver relevant content and stand by the corporate objectives.