Staff who manage continuing education and lifelong learning programming have titles such as program director, program manager, and program coordinator.
They are responsible for programs (a grouping of courses or a standalone activity such as a Project Management Certificate Program a Community Walk-A-Thon Special Event), courses (individual offerings, such as Introduction to Project Management or Basic Cooking Skills), and classes or sections (what a student or participant actually registers for). Their general responsibility is the selection and improvement of repeat programs, courses and classes/sections and the selection and development of new programs, courses and classes/sections.
A question a supervisor of program directors, managers or coordinators may ask is…How many programs, courses and classes/sections should a programming staff person be able to manage during a year?
Programs, Courses and Classes/Sections
The course is the “master” including title, description and price, while the class/section is a course offering that has an instructor and a scheduled day, time and place (which may be online). A program is normally a grouping of courses that a student/participant attends or a standalone event. So, in determining the volume that can be handled, you must think in terms of programs, courses and classes/sections, although in most cases the majority of work revolves around courses and classes/sections.
Data
There is no hard data answering the question of the number of programs, courses and classes/sections a programming staff person can manage. The mixture of programming impacts the volume. Someone whose responsibility for certificate programs or camps will not generate the volume of offerings as a person who is responsible for third party online providers.
Program Director, Manager or Coordinator Duties
Program directors, managers and coordinators are revenue generators and should not be tied down by day-to-day operational tasks, but instead focused on revenue generation. Ideally a staff person responsible for program planning should allocate his/her time as follows:
– Needs Assessment (connecting with students/participates and doing gap analysis): 15%
– Administration (any paperwork required): 15%
– Program Analysis/Selection (analyzing repeat offerings and select what to offer, cut and/or revamp): 15%
– Trends/Research (being on top of trends in their programming area): 10%
– Management of New Program Development (not doing, but managing subject matter experts who are developing new programs or courses): 20%
– Instructor Recruitment, Hiring and Management (full accountability for instructors): 15%
– Collaboration with Marketing Team (working with the Marketing Team to determine how best to promote their programming): 10%
Revenue Generation
A program director, manager or coordinator who is focused on their job should be generating 6-20 times their salary with 12 as the average. So, a programming staff person being paid $50,000 should be generating $300,000 – $1,000,000 with $600,000 as the average. At the least they should be generating three times, thus in this example $150,000 (this multiplier would be for a programming staff person handling only low dollar course programming).
By taking the Average Revenue per Course (total revenue divided by total courses) and Average Revenue per Class/Section (total revenue divided by total classes/sections) you can figure out the number of courses and classes/sections.
So, if Average Revenue per Course is $1,000 and the Average Revenue per Class/Section is $250, and you want your programming staff person to generate $600,000, then that is…
* $600,000/$1,000 = 600 Courses
* $600,000/$250 = 2,400 Classes/Sections
NOTE: If a programming staff person only spends 25% on what would be considered program planning, then…
* $600,000 X .25 = $150,000/$1,000 = 150 Courses
* $600,000 X .25 = $150,000/$250 = 600 Classes/Sections
Repeat & New
80 percent of courses should be repeat and 20 percent new (brand new or significantly revamped), so out of 600 courses 480 would be repeat and 120 new. Ideally 20 percent of repeat course content should be updated, so there is work to do with repeat courses, but the bulk of the work is focused on the 120 new, which breaks down to 10 a month.
NOTE: Certificate programs even if cohort include multiple courses, so the question is not how many certificate programs, but instead how many courses.
Operations Support
Ideally the classes/sections are handled by an Operations Team. The programming staff person decides what to repeat and the Operations Team handles the lining up of the instructor, room scheduling, data loading and so on. Handing off these tasks requires the programming staff person to trust the staff now with the responsibility.
The programming staff person would be accountable for all aspects of new courses, thus the classes/sections supporting the new courses. But the Operations Team should still be responsible for data loading, room scheduling, and material ordering.
Complex Program Planning
There is program planning that is more complex thus harder to develop (that is one reason a program planner should not be developing new courses, but instead managing the development using SMEs.) But remember, the measuring stick is not number of offerings, but instead revenue.
Conclusion
It is important supervisors are clear with programming staff about how much revenue, thus programs, courses and classes/sections they must produce. Using LERN’s Key Formulas (Average Fee, Average Students/Participants and Cancellation Rate) programming staff can figure out those numbers once they know their revenue goal.
The following are two Program Planning Chart Examples:
For more information about program, course and class/section programming contact [email protected] about LERN’s Special Report: 6-Step Course Planning Model.