18 December Brookes December 18, 2015 Schedule Awesomeness Class Schedule 0 Comment With the Holiday season nearly upon us it is time for our annual New Year’s schedule updates! Consequently, it's also when we receive the most questions about how we chose to make those changes. (Trust us, it's not easy.) It's important to us to not only have the best quality classes and excellent customer service, but to also develop an awesome schedule that serves our students' needs. So, with a limited number of classes slots to schedule – and a wide range of class types to offer – how exactly do we determine what classes to put on the schedule, how many of each class, and when on the schedule they should appear? Start with the best objective data possible: 1. Student attendance patterns over the previous year. Work to not be overly swayed by personal opinion (for example, Ben's two favorite classes are Fire and HIIT – the perfect schedule for him would only have those two classes on it!). 2. Overall class popularity. Calculate average attendance by class type across all studios - all times for that year. 3. Time slot preference. Calculate average attendance by class type across all studios - in seven distinct time slots from early morning to evening – so we know what types of classes are most popular in what time slot. If you read no farther, please take away that we take schedule changes very seriously. We know how much they impact our students and do our best to be strategic in our choices. Math and stats nerds, read on. Then we generate a popularity ranking for each time slot – the top four Series by time slot are shown below ranked in order of decreasing popularity Weekday Early AM HIIT, Fire, APY, Wood Weekday Morning APY, Sculpt, Fire, HIIT Weekday Lunch Fire, Sculpt, APY/Earth, Water Weekday Afternoon Fire, Core, Metal, Sculpt Weekday Prime Time APY, Sculpt, Fire, HIIT Weekday Evening Sculpt, APY, Fire, Water/Spark Weekend Morning APY, Fire, HIIT, Sculpt Weekend Afternoon Sculpt, Fire, APY, Core In order to make sure we load the right amount of each class type into each studio schedule we also rank the overall (not time slot dependent) popularity of each Series from 1 (most popular) to 10 (least). Series Rank Type Fire 2.4 Yoga APY Flow 2.8 Yoga Sculpt 3.3 Barre Core 5.6 Fitness Wood 6.5 Fitness Water 6.7 Yoga HIIT 6.9 Fitness Earth 8.6 Yoga Metal 8.8 Pilates Spark 8.9 Yoga Sweat 9.3 Fitness APY Basic F 9.3 Yoga Armed with this data we now apply a set of general principles to each studio schedule. ~40% of classes are Fire 50-55% of classes are Yoga (Fire, Earth, APY, Hot Flow, Wood, Water, Spark) 30% of classes are Fitness (HIIT, CORE, SWEAT) Good single studio mixture of classes Good time slot mixture of classes – taking time slot popularity data into account - Try to represent all of the top 4 ranked classes in each time slot Good multi-studio mix of classes – try not to run the same class at the same time in nearby studios Then we look at studio specific attendance data to try and satisfy local studio preferences Identify strongly attended class - Make minimal changes to these Identify weakly attended classes - Replace these with strong classes for that time slot where possible Create a good balance between Yoga and Fitness offerings - making sure both Yoga centric and Fitness centric students have good options Whew! As you can see – the scheduling process is a very complex one that takes time to develop. Each studio’s manager is consulted to give us another layer of local information. We want everyone to feel confident that we use a data driven and objective methodology for updating our schedules – making the best choices we can to bring a great selection of class offerings to our community! We love our Sunstone family. Thanks for helping us be our very best selves. Ben Hartsell, Vice President Brookes Ebetsch, Executive Director Related Articles Top 5 Excuses for Skipping Practice Hot yoga can be tough. Dallas hot yoga can be tougher, given the heat outside. Here at Sunstone, our groundbreaking series of options can help you adjust to your body’s needs from workout to workout – but first, you’ve got to get in the studio. Work Life Management: Yoga and Your Workday Believe it or not, yoga and your workday can go hand in hand. No matter how busy your schedule, making time to add hot yoga practice to your day will help with your work life management by adding more grace and less stress. Healthy Holiday Eating: How to Enjoy Your Holiday and Stay on Track How to Choose an Accountability Partner Last week, we introduced the concept of using an Accountability Partner to keep yourself on track to reaching your health and fitness resolutions. Don’t Settle for “Gym Yoga” – Dallas Hot Yoga is a Cut Above Gym Yoga Do you know what the difference is between “gym yoga” and Dallas hot yoga? When you take a yoga class at the gym, you may get a sub-par experience that leaves you disappointed. Gym classes are designed for the broadest audience, and sometimes even taught by instructors with no certification and little experience. How to Be a Good Student Dear Student, It is an honor and privilege to guide you through your practice each day you’re in my class. Teachers do not exist without students. It is through you that I am able to refine my craft. My hope is that every time you leave the studio you feel fulfilled, in a different mindset than you entered and empowered with more knowledge about yourself and your practice. Comments are closed.