Question:
We have a relatively new eLearning Department where we have a Director and Asst. Director. They are primarily responsible for various stages of creating products for our clients/stakeholders. Depending on the topic, the class is project managed by a Director from another Department. For example, we have a client we are creating an online class for Dental Terminology. The Director of our Training Solutions Department then turns into the Project Manager for this class. The problem with that is that this person is included in every email or meeting that takes place. Makes sure everyone is meeting deadlines and organizing follow-ups until the class is complete. This pulls the Director (Programmer) away from bringing in new business, etc.
I really like the LERN model of CEO/Director, Programmer, and Production Staff. I’ve been trying to model this structure for a couple years now. I want to request a position that pulls all project management away from the Directors (Programmers) and has one person (Project Manager) take on juggling all the projects our eLearning Department has started. This will allow consistency in project management and will free the Directors time to bring in new classes to create revenue, etc.
I’m wondering if there have been others in your network that are moving to the way I want to move our Division. I’m assuming the Project Manager function would fall under the Production Staff classification. Any comments, data, trends, best practices LERN can provide me within the next week would be GREATLY appreciated.
Answer:
The direction you are thinking about is precisely the direction that LERN is encouraging its member organizations to go. The attached diagram provides a schematic view of how you might think about organizing your department. Many of our member organizations are moving in this direction where there is a CEO or, in the case of a department, a department head.
Within the organizational structure of the department, there is someone responsible for operations management. This includes the management of the department operations related to production and provision of service. A Project manager would be the role that makes sense within your department. Supporting that person would be the front line staff who interact with customers and handle the administrative functions of the department.