Hi everyone,

My company is getting a new phone system and I have been asked to design the curriculum for the project. However, my employeer wants me to combine call center philosophy, soft skills, and the technical training together. I have no problem doing this, but I am envision this training to be 8 hrs. My director feels it should be 4 hours is there anything out there that show how long training should take? For instance do you know of anything that states for X amount of curriculum you should alot X amount of time

Too many factors involved to provide a formula that works.

Plus, I don't think your director should have any say over how long the training should be. In any case, deciding now how many hours a course should be - before a thorough analysis and course design - is putting the horse before the cart. It's like the dentist deciding how much time it will take to complete all your dental work without first examining you and layng out a comprehensive plan. And letting your director call the shots would be analogous to having the leasor of the dental office deciding how long the dentist should spend fixing your teeth - even if the leasor happens to be a dentist himself.

If one of the business constraints is the length of the training, then that will impact content. If the main priority is content, the the length of the class is subordinate. It's all about constraints and business goals.

You have to take the constraints into account when you design the training as well as the business goals.

Draw up your lesson plan, and then meet with the stakeholders. Lay out the scope, the cost, the time to create, the time to deliver, etc., and let them decide what the priorities and objectives are.

If call center agents' time off phones is a constraint, then they will have to accept a smaller scope.

If they want the full scope-- which you think requires 8 hours of curriculum-- then they will have to decide if they are willing to give up that time or how to make that happen.

You could also look at blending-- instructor led training, elearning, and job aids-- that may reduce the length of training or how it is delivered. Maybe it can be delivered in a series of sessions each no longer than 1 or 2 hours.

I disagree with the statement that the boss doesn't or shouldn't have any say over how long the training is. Sure he or she does. That is the reality of business. We respond to business goals, priorities, and constraints. It's a reality.

The key is to stand firm in demonstrating the correlation between quality and resources. If they restrict the time (and they will), one must demonstrate how that impacts the quality and scope of what one can offer.

Business will restrict resources training may have. Training then must address only that which may be *reasonably* addressed within the restrictions and demonstrate how that will impact the quality of the outcomes. If one needs 2 days and the business says one may have only 1, one must not try to shove 2 days of learning into one day. One must instead insist that only 1 day may be addressed and demonstrate how that will impact the business (good or bad).