The operations manager is responsible for everything related to scheduling and attendance. Concretely, they have the following responsibilities:
- Auditions: The operations manager sets the audition dates based on committee availability. Once the audition form has closed and the availability of the candidates is known, the operations manager creates the audition schedule.
- Rehearsals: Every week, the operations manager creates and publishes the schedule for the rehearsals. The schedule is based on musician availability, how well the songs are going, and when they were last practiced.
- Leading Band coach meetings: The operations manager is the chair of the band coach meetings that take place after each rehearsal. During these meetings, the status of each song is discussed. The operations manager takes the outcome of these meetings into account when creating the schedule. Ideally, the operations manager isn’t a band coach themselves to maintain a balanced overview, but this isn’t a hard requirement. If the operations manager isn’t a band coach themselves and doesn’t have any prior band coaching experience, it is advised to make them backup band coach and for them to have a look at how the band coaches work during the first rehearsals to get an idea of how to interpret what they discuss during the meetings.
- Rehearsal weekend: During the rehearsal weekend, every song is rehearsed once on Saturday. The operations manager creates the schedule for this day. On Sunday, the songs that need it most are rehearsed a second time. This is usually decided after all songs are rehearsed on Saturday, which means that the schedule can only be created quite last-minute. The operations manager is not necessarily the person that creates this schedule, but they are ultimately responsible for this being done on time.
Since the work of the operations manager has a direct impact on the experience of the musicians on an individual level, they should make sure not to be too controversial of a character for anyone. This means that, when, e.g., bad news or a warning about things like attendance has to be delivered to a musician, the operations manager should not be the person doing this. Instead, they should ask the Secretary to do this.
Possible role combinations
Considerations for and against making the operations manager Band coach :
- A operations manager/band coach may have difficulty not prioritizing the songs they coach while scheduling songs.
- Having both roles gives better insight into how band coaches handle and communicate the coaching and issues.
- If the operations manager isn’t also a band coach, this means one extra committee member is at the Band coach meeting, meaning less committee members get to socialize with musicians.
Possible solution:
- operations manager visits the band coaches for the first few rehearsals to get a feel for how they coach and communicate.
- operations manager would be primary band coach replacement if one of them is unavailable.
If necessary, possible issues a musician runs into can immediately be taken into account when creating schedules, without the information having to unnecessarily pass hands. The operations manager is already informed about individual preferences of musicians, so they may have more context to help people coming to them.