How many courses can one developer can create per quarter?

Nov 14, 2011

Big broad question here, I know.  I’m developing a training program of roughly 50 courses and I'm trying to estimate manpower requirements and timelines.  The $64,000 question is how many CBT’s one internal developer can create per quarter, and I’d love to get the community's thoughts on this.  Assuming the following factors, how many e-learning courses do you think a person ought to be able to produce per quarter?  Assume the following:

  • The target audience is retail sales associates
  • The content could be non-technical Product Knowledge, or it could be selling methods (mostly informational, interactive, but not real heavy on simulation)
  • 20 Minutes of learning time per module
  • The content will come from a  subject matter expert within the company who is not the course developer
  • The courses will be built in Articulate, and should be well designed and interactive, with quizzes.
  • There is a thorough cross-functional review process that will add some time
  • For each course, the developer will also have to produce a Facilitators Guide that will guide a facilitator through a live interactive group delivery of the CBT.

 I'm sure there are a million and one other important variables here, but  hopefully this gives us a start.  I really appreciate your feedback!

27 Replies
Russell Still

It's clearly going to vary from one developer to the next. I figure it takes me about 50 hours to create one 5-7 minute "lesson". I have a handful of courses running online now. The first one took me 2 years to complete, but it's fairly large, containing about 40 lessons. Most recently, I put a course online with about six lessons. It probably took me a couple of months to complete it. But that's ok - now I get paid while I sleep!

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