Practical course authoring
A curriculum-planning workflow for independent course creators
A five-pass workflow for turning expertise into a coherent programme before polishing individual lessons or choosing a delivery system.
Written by Martin Kruger · Updated 19 July 2026
Direct answer
Plan a curriculum in five passes: define the audience and destination, inventory the evidence and activities, group them into capabilities, sequence the hierarchy, then write and test the smallest useful path. Revise the structure before polishing every lesson.
1. Define the audience and destination
Write one paragraph describing who the programme is for, what they should be able to do afterwards and what is deliberately out of scope. This becomes the test for every structural decision. A topic can be interesting and still not belong in this programme.
2. Inventory evidence, decisions and practice
List the explanations, examples, demonstrations, practice activities and references you already have. Do not make modules yet. Mark what learners must understand, what they must decide and what they must practise. Gaps are easier to see before the inventory is forced into folders.
3. Group by capability, not file type
A useful course or module gathers material that advances one capability. Avoid structures such as “Videos”, “Readings” and “Downloads”; those describe formats, not a learning journey. Name groups with language that signals the work a learner is moving toward.
4. Sequence and pressure-test the hierarchy
Arrange the groups from necessary foundation to increasingly independent performance. Look for a module with only one trivial child, repeated introductions and lessons whose parent does not explain why they belong together. Skip a hierarchy level where it adds no meaning.
5. Write the smallest complete path first
Choose one representative path through the programme and write it end to end. The exercise exposes missing transitions and unrealistic scope earlier than polishing every opening paragraph. Test the path, revise the programme structure, and only then expand the remaining branches.
Keep a versioned export at meaningful milestones. A portable snapshot makes large structural experiments less risky and records how the curriculum changed over time.