These questions aim to help you clarify your understanding of the programme identity and positioning, and to orient yourself with the programme.

• How can I find what are the distinctive features of my programme? (What makes this programme academically, pedagogically and experientially distinctive?)  
• How do I know what the programme specification or programme structure is? 
• How does this programme relate to others (pathways, joint honours, dependencies)? 

Note: there are more specific questions related to programme vision and programme changes in the “Programme development” section.

These questions aim to help you clarify your understanding of the programme regulations, policies and key documentation.

Regulations and policies: 

• What are the most common regulations and policies that I will need to use most frequently? 
• What scenarios am I likely to encounter, and how do those regulations apply? What is the role of PS in those scenarios?   
• How do I know this is the latest policy? 

Key programme documentation: 

• Where can I find:
  • programme specification
  • programme and unit structures
  • student handbook
  • course unit information records? 
• Which of these documents am I responsible for maintaining or checking? 
• How do I ensure published information is current and accurate? 
• Is it my role to check that published programme information is correct, current and aligned to any external body accreditation (where applicable)? 

Note: there are more specific questions related to resits, requesting interruptions, etc., documentation in the appropriate sections.

These questions aim to help you clarify who you will collaborate with and to identify key stakeholders, committees and decision making processes. 

People you will collaborate with: 

• Who are my key internal stakeholders who support the programme?  
• Are there other Programme Directors I need to coordinate with? If so, who are they, and what do we need to align on? 
• Who are the external stakeholders (e.g. accreditors, partners, examiners)? 
• How do these roles interact across the student lifecycle? 

Meetings, committees and decision-making processes: 

• What are the various meetings I'm involved in?  
• In which ones I play a significant part in? what is my role? (e.g. chairing the meeting, contributing from my programme perspective?) 
• What are the terms of reference of each committee meeting I'm significantly involved in? (“terms of reference”= outlines the membership of a specific committee and the scope of its responsibilities. Reviewing it regularly helps confirm that membership is up to date and to clarifies roles and coverage). 
• What do I need to prepare in advance of each committee meeting I'm significantly involved in? 
• What is the decision-making process in those meetings?  

Note: there will be specific questions related to stakeholders in each relevant section. 

These questions aim to help you Identify the key PS teams you'll work with, their functions and the people behind them. 

PS and Programme Director partnership: 

• What PS team focuses on what themes?
  • Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG)
  • Curriculum and Programme (C&P)
  • Assessment and Progression (A&P)
  • Student Support and Wellbeing (SSW)
  • Student Admissions
  • Student Recruitment and Marketing
• Which scenarios require academic input vs PS-only handling? 
• When do I need to liaise with specific PS teams? 

Note: each of the activities in the following sections will have questions related to PS roles.

These questions aim to help you define a communication and influence system and to set up an approach that allows delegation and reduces being the default point of contact for everything.

Building a support team: 

• How do I avoid becoming the default point of contact? 
• How can I reduce the volume of email traffic that comes towards me? 

Communication and delegation systems: 

• How do I lead change and alignment without line management authority? 
• How do others successfully influence colleagues in similar contexts? 
• What does “facilitation” vs “ownership” look like in practice? 
• What communication systems or delegation models help? 
• What examples exist of effective role distribution? 

Programme identity: 

• How do I build a sense of programme ownership and identity with staff? Why is that important? 

Note: there will be specific questions related to leadership in the section on "Programme governance". 

These questions aim to help you identify what programme activities exist and to ensure they meet the intended purpose. 

• What types of programme-level activities exist (open days, welcome, organised trips, expert panels, planned social events, etc)? 
• What is the purpose of each activity? 
• Who supports each activity (PS, marketing, ambassadors)? 
• How do we know these activities are effective (e.g. is the event increasing exposure to professional opportunities? is it increasing the sense of belonging, etc.)?

To have clarity of your role in relation to admissions-facing and transition-related activities e.g., open days, offer holder days, options and/or progression sessions, and welcome, induction and transition (i.e., welcome week).

• What is my role at each stage? 
• What preparation and materials are expected of me? 
• How do I collaborate effectively with PS teams, Marketing, and student ambassadors? 
• How can I represent the programme effectively across the student lifecycle (e.g. degree ceremonies, celebration events)? 
• How do I design inclusive, meaningful experiences? 
• What is the timeline for these activities? 

Student registration and choices 

• What is my role in relation to student registration and student choices? 

Options and progression sessions 

• What information can we make available (and manage) to help students understand their options and decisions? 
• What is my role in supporting students to find their path? 

Activity purposes (quick reference) 

• Open days: Communicate what is distinctive about the programme and why students should choose UoM. 
• Offer holder days: Have tailored conversations with prospective students to support decision-making and conversion. 
• Options / progression sessions: Support students to choose options, pathways, and progression routes. 
• Welcome week / welcome back (Welcome, Induction and Transition): Help students feel welcomed and oriented. 

These questions aim to help you clarify your responsibilities in student support and escalation routes. 

• What is my role in:  
  • Pastoral support? 
  • Behavioural concerns or complex cases? 
• Where do responsibilities start and end across: Programme Director, Year Advisors, Tutors, Wellbeing and specialist PS teams? 
• How do I identify when a case needs escalation or referral (e.g. Mental Health Support Team (formerly Counselling and Mental Health Service), Occupational Health, Disability Advice and Support Service (DASS), Student Services Centre, University Centre for Academic English (formerly the University Language Centre)?
• How can I learn about available wellbeing and inclusion support? 
• How can I communicate more effectively with neurodiverse students and colleagues? 
• What common situations am I likely to encounter? 

These questions aim to help you clarify your role in inclusion, Widening Participation (WP) progression, and fostering a sense of belonging. 

• What is my role in relation to inclusion and WP students? 
• How can the programme foster belonging to support inclusion and equal access to resources and opportunities? 
• What practices support international students specifically? 
• How can peer mentoring or coaching be used effectively? 
• What examples exist of successful community-building activities that support belonging? 

These questions aim to help you understand student communication channels and what drives engagement at programme level.

• What channels exist for communicating with students? 
• What is the purpose of the Virtual Common Room (VCR)? 
• What drives student engagement at programme level? 
• What examples exist of effective engagement practice? 

These questions aim to help you clarify your understanding of current student feedback mechanisms, and how to build a community of student representatives to collaborate and partner with.

• What feedback mechanisms currently exist?
• Who plays a role (e.g. Information, Advice and Guidance PS teams, Students’ Union, student representatives)?
• Who manages relationships with student representatives?
• Are there examples of positive and effective collaboration with student representatives?
• What are the recruitment and training timelines for reps?
• How do I set expectations and ways of working with reps?

The questions aim to help you clarify when to attend Student Voice meetings and review student feedback in order to interpret and act on it appropriately.

• Signal versus noise in student feedback: how do I discern when to react, and when to interrogate the feedback?
• When should I act, interrogate, or contextualise feedback?
• How do I balance academic judgement with student perspectives?
• How do I share student feedback with colleagues when I do not have a line management relationship with them?
• How can I apply coaching skills with colleagues?
• When and how should we communicate when feedback cannot be acted on

These questions aim to hepl you clarify your role in reviewing NSS outcomes and implementing an improvement or action plan.

• What is my role in NSS review?
• How should NSS be interpreted statistically?
• How do programme actions align with Faculty/School action plans?
• How do I bring colleagues together around improvement actions?
• Is there a Student Experience Action Plan (SEAP)? What is my role in relation to it?

These questions aim to help you identify committees and governance structures you are involved in

• Which committees am I involved in? (e.g. Teaching Board, Board of Studies, Examination Boards, Student Staff Liaison Committee meetings, School-level programme review, academic malpractice hearings)
• What is my role in each (e.g. chair, contributor, representative)?
• What are the terms of reference for key committees?
• What do I need to prepare in advance?

These questions aim to help you clarify and co-design a governance approach that clarifies responsibilities across year leads, pathway directors, tutors, curriculum and PS teams, and other roles related to programme governance.

• How are decisions made at programme, School, and Faculty level?
• Who has authority at each stage?
• How do I influence decisions effectively?
• Which roles support programme governance? (e.g. year leads, year tutors, pathway directors, deputies, curriculum PS colleagues)
• Do we have defined roles or examples from other programmes that could be adapted?

These questions aim to help you define a system around programme changes and approvals that supports alignment on what needs changing, enables submission and approval, incorporates feedback, and supports communication to students.

• What types of changes exist (small / medium / large)?
• What are the timelines and constraints?
• How are we constrained by the student handbook when making changes? What level of manoeuvre do we have, and what should we consider?
• Is there a framework that informs change decisions (and reduces reliance on subjective opinions)?
• What documentation is required, and why?
• Are there examples where changes created unintended consequences or impacts?
• What policies should I be aware of before starting a change?

Change journey and communication

• What is the programme change journey? What are the key stakeholders (PS and academic roles)?
• Who is responsible for communicating changes to students?
• Are there examples of effective approaches for communicating changes?

Embedding strategic priorities (e.g. Social Responsibility, employability, partner-enabled learning, Artificial Intelligence)

• What are examples of effective approaches to embedding these changes?
• How can I engage colleagues in these changes?
• How can I moderate difficult conversations in group settings?

These questions aim to help you ensure the programme is cohesive and aligned.

• How are programme ILOs reviewed and updated?
• What are the steps for reviewing ILOs and ensuring the programme remains relevant to a changing landscape?
• How do changes affect coherence across units and pathways (including placements and fieldwork)?
• How do I ensure alignment across interdisciplinary programmes?
• Whose role is it to ensure student workload is balanced across the semester?
• Who is involved in reviewing timetables and assessment schedules?
• Where do I find the institutional memory of changes already made to the programme?

These questions aim to help you clarify your role in external relationships and processes.

• What is my role in accreditation processes?
• How do I work with external examiners (recruitment, induction, coordination)?
• What is the accreditation journey? When should I prepare, and what is my role at each stage?

These questions aim to help you support student progression and provide academic input in exam boards.

• What happens before, during, and after exam boards? 
• What is my role at each stage?
• What codes and jargon are used before, during, and after exam board sessions?
• What factors are considered in progression decisions?
• What common complex cases arise, and how are they handled?
• What is my role in student progression and retention?
• If I am monitoring and reporting, what mechanisms are used?

These questions aim to help you apply regulations appropriately in different academic scenarios. 

• What regulations do I use most frequently? 
  • An overview of the policies, procedures and guidance related to changes in the student journey (including mitigating circumstances, extensions and interruptions) is available from Teaching and Learning Delivery: Policy - Changes to the Student Journey
• How do these apply to:
  • Resits
  • Mitigating circumstances
  • Appeals
  • Interruptions of study
    • University Policy on interruptions to Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught programmes of study
    • Guidance for staff on interruptions to Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught programmes of study
    • Guidance for students on interruptions to Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught programmes of study
• What difficult case examples might I encounter?
• How can processes be streamlined so student contact focuses on meaningful conversations?

These questions aim to help you clarify your understanding of monitoring responsibilities and processes.

• How is student attendance monitored?
• What is my role in attendance monitoring (for example, in some Schools the Programme Director coordinates with Academic Advisors to return attendance records)?
• What programme performance metrics do I need to be aware of?
• Who monitors and reports on these metrics?

These questions aim to help you clarify your responsibilities across assessment management.

• What is my role in releasing marks to students?
• What is my role in assessments overall?
• Specific to BMH: What examples exist of previous problem papers?
• Specific to BMH: How do you design an effective problem paper?

These questions aim to help you understand staffing and resourcing pressures and how to respond to common risks.

Student fluctuations

• How do fluctuations in student numbers affect delivery (e.g. lab capacity, equipment use, resourcing)?
• How have other programmes addressed this?

Staff recruitment and reallocations

• How are staffing reallocations handled?
• How do I conduct effective, bias-informed recruitment interviews?
• How do other programmes manage unforeseen staff absences?

These questions aim to support Programme Directors who have line management responsibilities, particularly those who have a line management relationship with colleagues for the first time. 

• What do I need to know about how the HR system works?
• What are key elements to understand when line managing staff?

The "Managers Essentials" toolkit from the University's People Directorate is a useful place to start for those with line-management responsibilities. 

These questions aim to help you clarify when and how to work with Student Recruitment and Marketing teams.

• When should I collaborate with marketing and what for?
• What marketing expect of me during each semester?

These questions aim to help you understand your role in tutorial provision and associated processes.

• What is my role in relation to tutorials (e.g. timetabling; ensuring materials are available in Canvas; guidance for staff new to tutorials)?
• Do I have a role in the provision of academic advising?

These questions aim to help you clarify your role in timetabling inputs and decisions.

• What is my role in relation to timetabling (e.g. supply the data required for timetabling: teaching activities, assigned academic staff, room requirements, estimated student numbers etc.)?