Hello all,

My colleagues and I are having a debate. I was hoping all of you could help us. What is your average class size for leadership development courses? I understand there will be variance, but am trying to get an idea of what other organizations are doing. I would especially like to hear from healthcare and/or educational instituations, but welcome input from all organizations.

Thank you in advance
Mikel

In our organization leadership development class size is limited to no more than 15 participants; any more participants limits the amount of interaction which is an important part of the training.

Mike,

I really think it depends on what you are doing in that class. I have conducted soft skills classes with as many as 30 participants. However, it was a huge board game type thing that was laid out on the floor and the participants were the game pieces.

If you are taking traditional ILT, then I would recommend no more than 12.

I believe that the most appropriate answer to your debate, Mikel, is that class size is related to a number of factors including, but not limited to:

desired outcome
experience of the attendees
available resources
level of interactivity
experience of the learning facilitator

There are some topics that are best addressed one-on-one, others that benefit from a large group of participants with various backgrounds, and all sorts of other scenarios in between. So, instead of debating over some average class size, why not spend time examining what is most appropriate for each particular class?

Depends on whether it is skill building or just knowledge dispensing. If interpersonal communicatios skill building and with only one facilitator, 25-30 is about the limit. Especially true if there is role playing/practice sessions. However, I have also had speakers come in for an hour or two and had an audience of up to 100.