On a regular basis, professionals will attend lunch and learns. It’s an easy way for most employers to offer classes to the employee for the cost of lunch. However, not all lunch and learns are effective for developing an employee. Many vendors and course providers see a lunch and learn as an opportunity to lock a client into a sales pitch meeting.  Before engaging employees in a lunch and learn, the coordinator should clarify an agenda with the class provider. Such points would include the length of the meeting, what topics will be covered, approximate portion of the class is a sales pitch, anticipated competence of the audience, etc.
Setting time constraints for a lunch and learn helps the presenter plan for a specific time limit and helps schedule how much time to allocate to a particular topic. Setting an agenda will allow a coordinator to review what topics are relevant to their training needs and allow for some negotiating of what is or is not to be presented. By limiting how much time is allocated to a sales pitch will help then attendees with receiving some technical information than hearing a long story about the history of the company providing lunch. Discussing the anticipate competence of the audience will help the presenter to tailor their presentation to the audience such that a lunch and learn is productive for the attendee. Giving a class on properly selecting the right beach attire should vary greatly if the audience is a bunch of seasoned surfers vs. a bunch of penguins.
Although every individual will occasionally attend a poorly planned lunch and learn, asking questions and discussing the goals of the proposed training event will help optimize the time for the attendees. Hence, if someone asks if they can host a lunch and learn at your company, you should ask a few questions and clarify an agenda before setting a date.

-M