Development and maintenance of online distance learning Masters courses in a higher education institute Medical School Graduate School involves the interaction of an e-learning team with subject specialists, all of whom are time poor. To allow course development to proceed smoothly it must be a managed process. Challenges were revealed during an ethnography of the team; the ethnography narrative was used to study these further to answer the question 'how can online course development be managed?'. Team interactions with subject specialists consist of relational working, leading to the challenges of course development being analysed using Activity Theory. This involved finding activity systems in course development and detailing where 'çontradictions' (difficulties) in the process occurred. A new model of working was developed containing a checklist to be followed prior to course development, providing a means of managing online course development and maintenance, to enable working with best use of time.