VIPP involves training methodologies in which the traditional teacher-pupil relationship is turned into an interactive process. Such training sessions or workshops attempt to reach both the intellectual and emotional side of participants. New knowledge is not only transmitted, it is elaborated jointly by a group of participants under the guidance of a team of facilitators.

This new knowledge results from synthesizing the experiences and knowledge of all participants. Instead of giving the trainees the answers to many questions, they work together in groups, discussing questions from their own experience and bringing their visualised deliberations to the plenary where they are synthesized into an overall framework of knowledge.

Training workshops may allow the use of all VIPP techniques and aim to bring out the creativity of every participant. The design of the workshop follows a sequence of action–reflection–action, leading to a collective process of experiential learning.

The main difficulty with using VIPP in training seems to be using the methods alongside experienced resource persons who come to transmit their wisdom to trainees. In VIPP, training is based on the assumption that everybody is a resource person who can contribute to the learning process. However, subject matter specialists can be included in such processes. Instead of delivering a lecture or presentation in which the instructor explains and the pupils listen, in VIPP sessions the trainees may formulate their questions, requirements and interests for the expert beforehand. The expert's answers are captured on cards for further classification and use in training. In this way the involvement of experts does not contradict the interactive approach of VIPP.

The specific knowledge and experience of every participant is a central contribution to the VIPP learning process. The emphasis in VIPP is on learning. That means the trainee is in the centre, not the trainer.