How to assign Workshop Training Sessions?

October 21, 2009 2:04 PM

Organizing a Training Workshop: How do I easily/quickly assign Workshop attendees to their First Choice/Second Choice from a group of 5 topics? There's gotta be a better way than popsicle sticks!

I'm organizing a Workshop for 31 attendees. (While attendance is low in this example, learning a smart way to assign people will help me greatly in the future.)

There are 5 Workshop topics and we're holding 2 training sessions - morning and lunch. I have the ability to repeat any popular sessions during the lunch period as necessary.

Each of the 31 attendees has listed 2 topics to attend.

Topic A has 11 people, B has 10, C has 17, D has 9, E has 15.

What is the smart/fast way to assign workshop to each attendee while optimizing the time and repeating as few sessions as possible during the Lunch period? I'd say a maximum number of 10-12 for each group.

posted by Mrs_Eep to education (2 comments total)

My personal preference would be to build an Excel spreadsheet where you could store this info and have it auto-assign people into sessions. That would be the best way to deal with a larger group of people going forward. You'd have to be somewhat comfortable with formulas (although you can find them pre-written online) to make it work.

You could manage it manually this way as well.

It's kind of hard to explain without using any visuals, but essentially I (personally) would have one worksheet with all your attendees & their preferences in one tab. Maybe everyone is listed in the order they registered, so that they are given first-come, first-served priority? If that isn't an issue, then it's even easier. They'd be listed something like this:

Column A_______Column B__________Column C
Name__________First Choice________Second Choice
John Doe_______Topic A - p.m._______Topic D - a.m.
Jane Doe_______Topic A - a.m._______Topic B - p.m.

Then have a worksheet (tab) for each topic A-E where you'd fill in the session info according to the number of available seats.

Topic A, morning session
Column A________Column B
Seats___________Name
1.______________Jane Doe
2.______________Amanda Hugginkiss
3.
4.
5.


If you're ok with using formulas, you could have it set up so that as soon as you enter a new attendee and their selections on the first tab, it will auto-populate the other tabs, based on availability of seats, etc.
posted by giddygirlie at 4:58 PM on October 21

If I'm reading the question right, you want to level the attendance between the topics, but still give the maximum number of people their first and second choices? There's no foolproof way to do it, since at the extreme, every single person could select A and B as their choices, with no C, D, or E interest.

What I'd do, is just start with the morning session. Put everyone in their first choice. Then, look at the results. If C has 17, while D has only 9, find a C who has D as a second choice. Switch them to D for the morning, and pre-schedule them in C for the afternoon, highlighted so you know not to bump them out of that one again.

Repeat the process for the afternoon session. It may turn out that everyone can't get what they wanted.

There may be a way to automate the process, but it seems to me fairly easy to do pencil and paper style.
posted by ctmf at 6:11 PM on October 21