Pluralsight Skills is a skill development solution that enables employees to build in-demand skills in a way that’s personalized to their current knowledge and preferred way to learn. The course library includes content on software development, DevOps, machine learning, security infrastructure, and cloud, as well as certification practice exams, hands on learning experiences and cloud labs, and skills assessments.
$29
per month
Qstream
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Qstream headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts offers their eponymous sales enablement application.
Awesome tool for teams looking to gain new skills or refine and update existing skills. I love the convenience of using this tool for recertification credits (i.e. PMP). Instead of identifying which classes I need to take, I can identify my interests and have recommendations presented for what paths I should take. It is a really helpful tool to create ladders for my team to transition from one role into the next. I think this is going to be a really beneficial tool.
Qstream is great when used for reinforcement of training conducted. Especially when that training is detailed or complex, Qstream will help to embed key concepts and drive adoption while ensuring reps are interacting.
Pluralsight has hundreds of authors that are constantly producing new content, which is valuable for the tech industry that is constantly moving at a brisk pace.
Many content authors are respected leaders in the topic they're presenting. You are able to trust that their content is thorough and authentic.
Niche expert-level topics are presented in a curated video format which is difficult to find anywhere else.
Gamification: gets reps involved in ways that keep it interesting while bringing in elements of competition.
Mobile: ease of use and direct access to reps while on the move. The interface is intuitive and able to be interacted with in quick increments rather than lengthy elearning.
Coaching: provides direct insights into who is coping and who is not so that enablement efforts can be focused.
Companies don't change technologies in their products often. For example a product that was built on AngularJS is still viable and the company may have no plans to upgrade it. Pluralsight could do a better job of providing new courses on technology that's still useful, though somewhat dated; like AngularJS for example.
Pluralsight has a bad habit of throwing all their courses in a large bucket. For example, when I log-in and look to see what new I often have to wade through courses on tools that a web artist or designer would use. I wish Pluralsight would categorize course and let us (their customers) flag what types of videos we wanted to see, or better yet exclude from our view.
Years ago, Pluralsight would let its customer download the courseware and that was great. I was disappointed when they stopped this feature.
I'd love to see more course where the goal is to build a particular type of software. For example, lets have one where you build a blog using ASP.NET and deploy it to Azure. Let have one where you build a survey application, etc. Learning technologies is great, but I'd love to see courses where the goal is to build a particular type of application.
Reporting: we only had access to some of the reports so would have liked to see more detail and have the ability to create custom reports.
Licensing: we accessed qstream via Growthplay so only had access to limited features. Would like to see this extended so that we could truly experience all of the qstream benefits.
Content Creation: we were not able to create our own questions and streams but had to rely on the external team. Self-creation and self-directed streams would have been preferable.
Qstream is good in terms of gamification and driving adoption. However we are looking for a platform that supports content creation, ILT training as well as gamification. Qstream would meet only one of those criteria. We may still use them again if we are unable to find a compete platform in future
Qstream was easy for us to use and gain insights from. Feedback from sales leaders and reps was generally positive. Having greater flexibility about creating custom reports and streams would have increased the rating
Before using Pluralsight, staff was using YouTube to help them with developing certain aspects of their knowledge. However, YouTube is much less structured/organized than Pluralsight. Pluralsight has a very wide offering of courses and it has lot of good content. One quick search and we can get started.
Qstream was selected by default because it was offered by Growthplay as their preferred gamification and adoption tool. We have subsequently looked at acquiring Qstream for other initiatives and are in the process of evaluating options
One positive impact is it has kept our employees engaged in the material they work with every day. Instead of becoming stagnant and complacent, they are actively searching out ways to develop skills and do more with the tools available to them.
It saves money when it comes to offering training and development opportunities company-wide. It would be much more costly to invest in specialized training for that number of employees.
One potential negative is the amount of company time spent on coursework over work responsibilities. A balance must be struck and individuals should be encouraged to explore the training on their own time.
Reps have adopted our new sales methodology quicker and with more rigour meaning we are more successful in the field.
We’ve been able to create scale to drive adoption. Without technologies like Qstream, we would never be able to meet our enablement and growth targets.
More reps talking a consistent message means our customer experience has improved at the sales front. This allows us to differentiate versus the competition and ensures we win more often.
