02 Feb Strategic Visioning

Unit 1 discussion

DQ1 Organizations and Opportunity

Organizations are full of complexity, diversity, and opportunity for appreciation and innovation. For this discussion, complete the following:

Evaluate how historical leadership theories have:

Influenced the nurse leader’s ability to wrestle with the complexity of organizations, teams, and other care settings.

Impacted the role of the nurse leader in the context of diversity.

Affected the potential of nurse leaders to be innovative.

Be sure to cite the leadership theories that you used to construct your response using APA style.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Comment on one specific aspect of their evaluation that you agreed with and explain why you agree.

Relate another leadership theory that would support your peer’s evaluation, or a story from your personal practice that illustrates an aspect of your peer’s evaluation playing out in the real world.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Discovering Positive Stories: The First Stage of AI

The goal of the discovery phase in appreciative inquiry is to identify the best of what already exists in an organization or team, or around a specific topic. The main avenue for accomplishing this is looking for times when an individual, team, or organization really achieved success, had everyone working in sync with each other, or otherwise accomplished a nearly ideal outcome. Often in appreciative inquiry this is accomplished through sharing stories of the times of success.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Briefly describe your current place of practice, or a former place of practice in which you have experience.

Relate two stories that illustrate success in the place of practice you described. These stories can be from your own experience or colleagues at your place of practice. They should illustrate individual and team or organizational success. These stories should exemplify outcomes, teamwork, et cetera to which you would like the team or organization to aspire.

Briefly explain the areas of team or organizational quality and safety to which your stories are related.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Suggest one or more additional topics related to improving organizational quality or safety that your peer could investigate further, based on the stories they presented.

Relate a positive story from your own practice that could be relevant to your peer’s place of practice or the areas of quality and safety that they identified in their stories.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Unit 2 discussion

DQ1 Dreaming of a Great Future: The Second Stage of AI

The goal of the dream phase of appreciative inquiry is to look for themes in the positive stories collected during the discovery phase and to use them as a springboard to envision a future path for the organization that aspires to innovate and be open to the potential of consistent achievement. In the dreaming stage you do not want to limit the conversation—this is truly about dreaming big! The idea here is to think of examples of great performance by a care team, department, or an entire health care organization, not as isolated events but as something that can be achieved on a consistent basis. It is also quite common to align the dream of what a team, department, or organization can be to its mission and values. This creates a synergistic effect of aspiring to specific goals that elevate the organization to its best.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Describe a quality and/or safety topic that emerged during your discussion of the discovery phase in your Unit 1 discussion.

Describe the vision and/or mission of the place of practice that was the setting for your Unit 1 discussion.

Explain a vision of the future for a care team, department, or the organization that is your place of practice that sets aspirational goals related to the quality or safety topic you described. These goals should be a synthesis of the positive stories you heard in the discovery phase and the mission or vision of your place of practice.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Comment on the relevance of the quality or safety topic described by your peer to their vision. Does it seem like a good fit?

Comment on the relationship between the vision your peer described and the mission of their place of practice. Do they seem to be in alignment?

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Appreciative Inquiry.

Generic Processes of Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciative Inquiry: Core Concepts | Transcript.

DQ2 SWOT Analysis

An efficient method for analyzing the internal and external positives and negatives of an organization is using a SWOT analysis. SWOT analyses can be done at an organizational, department, or team level. They can also be done in general terms or with regard to a specific issue or focus. The inputs for a SWOT analysis can be observational, data from internal dashboards, data generated by self or external assessors or accreditors, et cetera. The important point of keeping the data relevant is to make sure that it can be categorized as a strength, weakness, opportunity, or threat.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Describe the mission statement of the organization or care setting in which you are currently practicing (or are planning to use as the context for you assignments in this course).

Use one of the assessments linked in the Resources, and analyze your organization’s performance with regard to the criteria presented in that assessment ( Note: If you choose to use the International Finance Corporation’s A Self-Assessment Guide for Health Care Organizations, you only need to complete one of the five sections in the Self-Assessment Template section to inform your SWOT analysis).

Briefly comment on which aspects of the assessment you chose align to specific parts of your organization’s mission.

Create a SWOT analysis chart that depicts results of the assessment you performed on your organization.

Comment on what your SWOT analysis illustrates about your organization’s performance.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Suggest an assessment that your peer did not use in their response but that seems relevant to their organization’s mission statement.

Briefly explain why you believe the suggested assessment would provide pertinent data related to the mission statement.

Offer a brief critique of the SWOT analysis.

Based on the information your peer presented, does there seem to be anything missing from the SWOT chart?

Based on the information your peer presented, would you suggest a different categorization of any of the information?

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Is your work environment healthy?

Healthcare Performance Improvement Readiness Assessment: The Key to Achieving the IHI Triple Aim.

A Self-Assessment Guide for Health Care Organization [PDF]

Unit 3 discussion

Leadership Self-Assessment

One key aspect to being an effective leader, manager, or administrator is to be aware of your own leadership strengths, weaknesses, and style. In the field of nursing leadership, two of the most significant professional organizations are the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) and the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

For this discussion, review the Nurse Executive Competencies from AONE or the ACHE’s Healthcare Executive 2016 Competencies Assessment Tool (these are linked in the Resources). Choose one, and complete the following.

If you chose the Nurse Executive Competencies from AONE

Using a scale of 1–5 (1 = novice, 3 = competent, 5 = expert), complete the following. Note: The goals you create here will be revisited in the Unit 10 discussion.

Assess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–G in section 1, the Communication and Relationship Building theme. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your initial discussion post.

Reflect on your current competence in this theme, and explain how your abilities in this theme are used in your current practice.

Create two goals for improving specific competencies (A–G) in this theme that you believe are realistic within the scope of learning for this course.

Assess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–E in section 3, the Leadership theme. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your initial discussion post.

Reflect on your current competence in this theme, and explain how your abilities in this theme are used in your current practice.

Create two goals for improving specific competencies (A–E) in this theme that you believe are realistic within the scope of learning for this course.

If you chose the ACHE’s Healthcare Executive 2016 Competencies Assessment Tool

Using a scale of 1–5 (1 = novice, 3 = competent, 5 = expert), complete the following. Note: The goals you create here will be revisited in the Unit 10 discussion.

Assess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–C (including all sub-points as laid out in the table) in section 1, the Communication and Relationship Management theme. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your initial discussion post.

Reflect on your current competence in this theme, and explain how your abilities in this theme are used in your current practice.

Create two goals for improving specific competencies (A–C) in this theme that you believe are realistic within the scope of learning for this course.

Assess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–D (including all sub-points as laid out in the table) in section 2, the Leadership theme. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your discussion post.

Reflect on your current competence in this theme, and explain how your abilities in this theme are used in your current practice.

Create two goals for improving specific competencies (A–D) in this theme that you believe are realistic within the scope of learning for this course.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Comment on areas of similar strength or weakness that you shared with your peer.

Offer feedback on one of your peer’s goals. Specifically, does the goal feel like it is achievable within the scope of the course?

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

AONE: Nurse Executive Competencies [PDF].

ACHE Healthcare Executive 2016 Competencies Assessment Tool [PDF].

Unit 4 discussion

DQ1 Strategic Planning Models and Setting Goals

When an analysis of an organization’s internal and external environments uncovers an area that needs to be addressed, it can be difficult to gain traction for planning improvement. Strategic planning models can help frame and structure the creation of short-, mid-, and long-term goals and create a road map toward achieving them.

For this discussion, you will apply one of the strategic planning models to create goals and outcomes to address the issue for improvement that you identified with your SWOT analysis in your Unit 3 assignment. In your response address the following:

A brief explanation of the strategic planning model you have chosen and why you believe it will be a good fit to address the issue identified in your SWOT analysis.

You may wish to call out where goal setting and improvement planning occurs within the model you chose.

Create one just-in-time goal that can be applied immediately to some aspect of the issue you have identified.

Briefly explain how achieving this goal is realistic and will begin addressing some aspect of the issue in the immediate future.

Create one mid-term goal (six months to five years to achieve) that will result in an improvement related to the issue you have identified.

Briefly explain how achieving this goal is realistic within the time frame and will lead to improvements.

Create one long-term goal (five or more years to achieve) that will result in an improvement related to the issue you have identified.

Briefly explain how achieving this goal is realistic within the time frame and will lead to improvements.

Briefly reflect on your experience applying the model you chose to set your goals.

What about the model helped you conceive and structure your goals?

What about the model proved challenging or unhelpful for your goal setting?

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address at least one of the following:

Compare your experience with setting goals to that of you peer.

Do you have any suggestions to help your peer navigate the complexities of setting goals?

Comment on the relevance and reality of the goals your peer set.

How relevant are the goals to the issue that your peer is trying to improve?

How realistic do you think you peer’s goals are within the time frame they are proposing?

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Design the Path to Your Dream: The Third Stage of AI

Through the discovery and dream stages of appreciative inquiry, you have discovered the positive core of your organization, department, or community project and dreamed a future to which it should be aspiring. The next step is to design the path to take your organization to that dream. One way to design the path is by creating provocative propositions: statements that act as goals or aspirational guidelines that bridge the gap between the present of the discovery stage and the future of the dream stage.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Create two provocative propositions (statements that will help you in working toward constructing an ideal reality for your care setting) that each address different aspects of your affirmative improvement goals.

Explain how each provocative proposition will help you to bridge the gap between what currently is within your organization, department, community project, et cetera, and your dream of what might be.

Reflect on how setting goals through provocative propositions differs from goal setting in the strategic planning model you used in this unit’s first discussion.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Offer a critique of one of your peer’s provocative propositions utilizing the following criteria (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2008):

Is it provocative? Does it stretch, challenge, or interrupt the status quo?

Is it grounded? Are examples available that illustrate the ideal as a real possibility? Is it grounded in the organization’s collective history?

Is it desired? Do you want it as a preferred future?

Is it stated in affirmative and bold terms?

Is it a participative process?

Reference

Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. M. (2008). The appreciative inquiry handbook: For leaders of change. Brunswick, OH: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Appreciative Inquiry.

Generic Processes of Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciative Inquiry: Core Concepts | Transcript.

Unit 5 discussion

DQ1 Integrating Theory Into Strategic Planning

Nurses at the master’s level and beyond are often defined by their ability to evaluate theories and apply the best one to a specific practice situation. This is also true for nurse leaders, who need to use theoretical structure to evaluate and apply ideas in practice environments. Certain leadership and health care theories are more applicable to certain situation or to achieve specific goals.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Identify two leadership or health care theories from your readings in this course, or from your own research or practice, and briefly describe each theory.

Consider one of the strategic goals or provocative propositions from your Unit 4 discussions, and explain how you would apply each theory to help achieve that goal or proposition.

Briefly evaluate which theory is the most relevant and beneficial to apply in achieving the goal or proposition.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Present a new leadership or health care theory to your peer, and explain how the theory would apply to the goal or proposition your peer used as the basis for their post.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Additional Considerations in Strategic Planning

When planning the future of our organizations, departments, community projects, et cetera, we cannot merely think about our goals in a vacuum. As we plan for achieving our goals, we must consider the implications for our patients and for the communities that we serve. These considerations are often ethical, cultural, and regulatory in nature.

For this discussion please complete the following:

Briefly outline a plan that you believe would result in achieving one of your strategic goals or provocative propositions.

For your plan and goal or proposition, evaluate the following:

What are the ethical considerations or challenges that you will need to navigate, to address, or that may cause you to refine your plan?

What are the cultural considerations or challenges that you will need to navigate, to address, or that may cause you to refine your plan?

Think about culture with regard to both the patients and community you will be serving, as well as the organization.

You may wish to look to transcultural theory and team building strategies to help address the point, as well.

What are the regulatory considerations or challenges that you will need to navigate, to address, or that may cause you to refine your plan?

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address at least one the following:

Contribute insights from you own practice in developing and applying strategic plans that could help your peer address any of the ethical, cultural, or regulatory considerations they presented.

Compare the ethical, cultural, or regulatory considerations from your post to those of your peer. Reflect on how the specific goal shapes the relevant considerations.

Offer additional considerations that may be missing from your peer’s initial post, as well as potential solutions for how to address these new considerations.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Unit 6 discussion

Finding the Right Leadership Style

There is no one leadership style that is the best to apply in all circumstances. Most situations require a mix of leadership qualities and skills.

For this discussions refer to the goals and objectives in the Strategic Plan for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. You will use this resource to complete the following:

Select one of the four goals from the strategic plan.

For each objective under that goal:

Explain the leadership qualities and skills that would most likely facilitate success in achieving the objective.

Evaluate the relative importance these qualities and skills to achieving success.

Synthesize your explanations and evaluations for each objective, and write a paragraph that describes the type of leader that would be the most likely to succeed in achieving the strategic goal to which the objectives lead.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address at least one of the following:

If you selected the same goal as the peer to whom you are responding, compare and contrast the leadership qualities and skills you determined to be the most important to achieve success. Which qualities and skills that your peer addressed, but you did not, would you want to incorporate into your description of the ideal leader for this goal? Why?

If you selected a different goal than the peer to whom you are responding, reflect on leaders in your own practice who share qualities and skills that your peer determined were key to success. Present your peer with other characteristics those leaders from your practice have that might be relevant to successfully achieving the strategic goal your peer addressed.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Strategic Plan.

Unit 7 discussion

DQ1 Cultural Climate

The climate and culture of an organization can have an impact on what people within it perceive as important and how they believe they should be going about their work. Think about the care setting in which you currently practice, or a care setting in which you hope to be practicing in the future. Reflect on the readings in this unit and think about an aspect of your care setting. For example, safety, diversity, work environment, et cetera.

For this discussion, complete the following:

Briefly assess your care setting with regard to your aspect of interest (safety, diversity, work environment, et cetera).

Explain the strengths of your care setting’s organizational culture and climate that contribute to positive outcomes for your chosen aspect.

Explain the weaknesses of your care setting’s organizational culture and climate that are obstacles to achieving positive outcomes for your chosen aspect.

How might you work to improve the current culture or climate so as to maximize the possibility of positive outcomes? Why do you believe this would help to improve the culture or climate or to maximize the possibility of positive outcomes?

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Compare and contrast the care setting that you wrote about for your discussion with that of your peer.

Specifically, address how the culture and climate of each organization impacts its ability to achieve desired positive outcomes.

Comment on aspects of your peer’s improvement plan that you would like to adopt for your care setting.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Care Setting Culture and Strategic Plans

The culture of an organization can be a great asset or a big hurdle for implementing strategic plans and initiatives. An important thing to keep in mind is that cultures are dynamic, and that we have the ability to change them with consistent and meaningful messaging as leaders. In this way, cultural climate challenges can be turned into opportunities. For this discussion, address the following:

Reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the current cultural climate in your care setting, that you wrote about in the first discussion of this unit.

Identify one area of the cultural climate that could be an asset in helping you implement your strategic plan, or achieve one or more specific goals.

Explain how this characteristic of cultural climate will help contribute to success.

Identify one area of the cultural climate that could be a challenge to the implementation of your strategic plan, or to achieving one or more specific goals.

Explain what leadership theories, models, or strategies could help you turn this challenge into an opportunity.

Reflect on the types of messaging that would most likely be successful in the context of your care setting and your strengths as a leader.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address one or more of the following:

Suggest an additional leadership theory, model, or strategy that could help your peer overcome the challenge they presented. Explain how the theory, model, or strategy could be useful in addressing the identified challenge.

Relate an experience from your personal practice in which the culture in your health care setting either helped an initiative be successful, or limited the success of an initiative. What lessons learned from this experience could be useful to your peer in either leveraging cultural assets or overcoming cultural challenges?

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Unit 8 discussion

DQ1 Strategic Communication

Effective communication is one factor in successfully implementing and maintaining a strategic plan. Strategic communication is the use of careful messaging to internal and external stakeholders and constituencies, to achieve the goals of specific strategic initiatives or of the overall mission of a care setting. Think about the strategic plan that you created for your Unit 6 assignment, and address the following in your discussion:

What are the essential aspects of your strategic plan that you would need to communicate to internal stakeholders or groups?

How would you craft your communication with these stakeholders or groups to facilitate understanding and buy-in? Please provide relevant citations to communication strategies as relevant.

Reflect on the use of in-person versus virtual communication. How should you apply these within the guidelines and policies set by your care setting?

What are the essential aspects of your strategic plan that you would need to communicate to external stakeholders or groups?

How would you craft your communication with these stakeholders or groups to facilitate understanding and buy-in? Please provide relevant citations to communication strategies as relevant.

Reflect on the use of in-person versus virtual communication. How should you apply these within the guidelines and policies set by your care setting?

Reflect on how effective communication at appropriate times throughout the lead up to implementing your strategic plan can contribute to its success.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address one or more of the following:

Provide an additional communication strategy for one of the stakeholders or groups, and explain how it would help your peer with their communication.

Suggest an additional stakeholder or group that your peer should consider in their communication plan, and explain why it is important to consider them.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Tying Strategic Planning to Vision and Mission

This discussion is based on the media simulation Vila Health: Tying Strategic Planning to Vision and Mission.

In the simulation there were four executive-level leaders for the health care organization. Each one had information and viewpoints about the strategic direction that the organization could take.

For this discussion, address the following in your post:

Write a brief, one paragraph proposal in which you:

Describe the strategic direction the organization in the simulation should take.

Explain how the strategic direction aligns with the organization’s mission, vision, and values.

Explain how you would present your proposal to each of the executive-level leaders in order to build buy-in and approval. For example:

How would you communicate your proposal?

What are the key considerations for each stakeholder?

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address one or more of the following:

Provide a suggestion for an additional communication strategy that could help build buy-in from one or more of the executive leaders, and explain why you believe that strategy would help your peer to build buy-in.

Suggest an alternate viewpoint on how the strategic direction proposed by your peer could help lead to quality or safety improvements for the organization.

Suggest one or more cultural, ethical, or regulatory considerations that should be considered when pursuing and planning the strategic direction of the organization.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Vila Health: Tying Strategic Planning to Vision and Mission | Transcript.

Unit 9 discussion

Quality, Safety, and Leadership

Improving the quality of the care provided by a care setting and working toward zero patient harm is one route toward a reliable and sustainable organization. Leadership is an important aspect of continuous improvement toward quality and safety goals. Leadership is also important in helping to forge the future of your practice (Chassin & Loeb, 2013).

For this discussion, reflect upon a quality or safety initiative in your current care setting or one that you have developed during your work on the assignments in this course. Address the following in your discussion post:

A brief explanation of a quality or safety initiative and its impacts.

If this is a current initiative happening in your care setting, discuss the impacts you are seeing as the initiative is carried out.

If this is an initiative you developed through your course assignments, discuss the improvements you are hoping to achieve.

A critique of the leadership styles or strategies being applied to the initiative.

If this is a current initiative happening in your care setting, describe the leadership styles or strategies being used, comment on their effectiveness, and propose at least one additional style or approach that could improve the support or sustainability of the initiative.

If this is an initiative you developed through your course assignments, describe the leadership styles or strategies you see as the best fits to help implement your initiative, and explain why you believe the styles or strategies will help ensure success.

Comment on how, as a nurse leader working with a quality or safety initiative, you are able to help shape the nursing practice and roles at your place of practice.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address one or more of the following:

Relate a quality or safety initiative that you worked toward, or observed, that would be a good fit with the leadership styles or the vision of nursing practice that your peer described in their post.

Offer an alternate viewpoint on the critique of leadership styles or strategies that your peer completed.

Reference

Chassin, M. R., & Loeb, J. M. (2013). High-reliability health care: Getting there from here. The Milbank Quarterly, 91(3), 459–490.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Unit 10 discussion

DQ1 Self-Assessment and Goal Progress Reflection

In Unit 3, you conducted a self-assessment of your knowledge and skills. You also set goals for improving on competencies in which you felt you were weaker. Looking back on your work and learning in this course, address the following in your discussion post:

If you chose the Nurse Executive Competencies from AONE

Reflect on the goals you set for the Communication and Relationship Building theme.

To what degree did you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

How did the activities and resources in the course help you to work toward achieving your goals?

In what ways have you incorporated into your practice aspects of the skills and knowledge you improved on your path to achieving your goals?

Reassess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–G in the Communication and Relationship Building theme on the same scale of 1–5 (1 = novice, 3 = competent, 5 = expert). Please post your self-assessment ratings in your discussion post.

Reflect on the goals you set for the Leadership theme.

To what degree did you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

How did the activities and resources in the course help you to work toward achieving your goals?

In what ways have you incorporated into your practice aspects of the skills and knowledge you improved on your path to achieving your goals?

Reassess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–E in the Leadership theme on the same scale of 1–5. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your discussion post.

If you chose the ACHE’s Healthcare Executive 2016 Competencies Assessment Tool

Reflect on the goals you set for the Communication and Relationship Management theme.

To what degree did you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

How did the activities and resources in the course help you to work toward achieving your goals?

In what ways have you incorporated into your practice aspects of the skills and knowledge you improved on your path to achieving your goals?

Reassess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–C (including all sub-points as laid out in the table) in the Communication and Relationship Management theme on the same scale of 1–5. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your discussion post.

Reflect on the goals you set for the Leadership theme.

To what degree did you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

How did the activities and resources in the course help you to work toward achieving your goals?

In what ways have you incorporated into your practice aspects of the skills and knowledge you improved on your path to achieving your goals?

Reassess your current knowledge and skills for each competency area A–D (including all sub-points as laid out in the table) in the Leadership theme on the same scale of 1–5. Please post your self-assessment ratings in your discussion post.

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address the following:

Compare and contrast your experiences in the course, in working toward and applying the learning from your goals, with those of your peer.

Compare your experiences in the skill and knowledge growth that you have seen with that of you peer.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

DQ2 Maintaining Momentum in Your Program and Practice

At this point you likely are almost done with all your work for this course, which means you have done all the heavy lifting to successfully complete the first course in your leadership and administration specialization. Congratulations! The purpose of this discussion is to give you a space to reflect on your plan for continuing on your journey through the MSN program, as well as how you can leverage what you are learning to get to the place (or position) you want in your nursing career.

For this discussion, reflect on the following questions:

Which courses are you planning to take over the next two quarters?

How do you hope these courses will help to increase or refine your knowledge and skill base?

Which courses are you most interested in taking? Why?

What is the place of practice and/or position to which you are aspiring?

How will your learning contribute to reaching your goal?

What has been the most useful aspect of your coursework so far in your program? Why?

Response Guidelines

Review the responses of your peers and select one peer to whom you wish to respond. In your response address one of the following:

Compare and contrast your program plans with that of your peer.

Compare and contrast your career goals with that of your peer.

Offer helpful suggestions on resources, organizations, or advice that could help your peer on their path to achieving their career goals.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

Unit 3 Assignment 1

Care Setting Analysis

Professional Context

Master’s-level nursing leaders need to be able to apply critical thinking and analysis skills in order to discover not only what makes their care settings great but also to find opportunities to improve gaps. An ability to identify, understand, and leverage opportunities for improvements and consistent high achievement can help nursing leaders ensure that their care setting are reliably able to deliver improvements in quality and safety. An understanding of different methods for analyzing a health care setting is also important to ensure the right tool is being applied in appropriate circumstances.

Scenario

You have been tasked to conduct an analysis of your care setting that will result in two potential pathways for later creating a strategic plan to improve its quality and safety. In order to accomplish this, you have been asked to present the discovery and dream phases of an appreciative inquiry project and a SWOT analysis of the care setting. You have also been asked to compare the two processes and reflect on the results, as well as evaluate the leadership characteristics and skills that would be desirable for the person leading the potential initiatives that could grow out of your analyses.

Instructions

Your work for this assignment will help inform some aspects of your assignments in Unit 6 and 9. Look ahead to those assignments to see how they all fit together.

The requester of the analysis has stated that you should be sure to address the following in your report. Note: The bullet points below correspond to grading criteria in the rubric. Be sure your work is, at minimum, addressing each of the bullets. You may want to read the Care Setting Analysis Scoring Guide to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed. Additionally, the Guiding Questions: Care Setting Analysis document may be helpful in providing additional clarification about things to consider when creating your assignment. Both documents are linked in the Resources.

Part 1: Appreciative Inquiry Discovery and Dream

Synthesize stories and evidence about times when your care setting performed at its best with regard to quality and safety goals.

Propose positive yet attainable goals for your care setting that will lead to ethical and culturally sensitive improvements in organizational quality and safety and that align with the care setting’s mission, vision, and values.

Part 2: SWOT Analysis

Present and analyze the findings of a SWOT analysis of your care setting as it relates to quality and safety goals.

Explain one area of concern that you identified in your SWOT analysis that is relevant to your care setting’s mission, vision, and values and for which you propose pursing improvements.

Part 3: Comparison of Approaches

Compare and contrast the way you had to think about your care setting and data, as well as how you interact with others, when using the AI and SWOT approaches.

Part 4: Analysis of Relevant Skills and Leadership Characteristics

Present an analysis of relevant skills and leadership characteristics that would be beneficial in pursuing improvement projects that could grow out of both the AI and SWOT approaches.

Address Generally Throughout Report

Communicate analyses clearly and in a way that demonstrates professionalism and respect for stakeholders and colleagues.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Submission Requirements

Length of submission: 4–7 double-spaced, typed pages. Your report should be succinct yet substantive.

Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence to support your analysis.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Resources

Care Setting Analysis Scoring Guide.

Guiding Questions: Care Setting Analysis [DOC].

Appreciative Inquiry.

Generic Processes of Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciative Inquiry: Core Concepts | Transcript.

APA Paper Template.

APA Paper Tutorial.

Unit 6 Assignment 1

Strategic Planning Report

Professional Context

As a Master’s-level nurse leader, it is imperative for the viability of your care setting that you think in terms that are broad and look into the future. When developing provocative propositions of what your care setting could be and proposing goals that will help your setting improve, it is necessary to not just look to the immediate future, but also the future five or even ten years ahead. Those who depend on the care that your setting offers need to be helped right now, but they will also need to be helped next week, and years from now. By thoughtfully designing a strategic direction for a care setting, a nurse leader can ensure that people continue to receive the health care they need in a quality and safe way throughout their lives.

Scenario

The feedback that you received on your Care Setting Analysis has been positive. You have been asked to select one of the potential improvement projects that you noted in your analysis and create a full strategic plan that lays out a 5–10 year plan to achieve the quality and safety improvements for which you will design outcomes. This means you will build your Strategic Planning Report using either an appreciative inquiry approach (and addressing the design stage) or by building on your SWOT analysis and applying one of the strategic planning models that you have studied.

Instructions

The requester of the strategic plan has stated that you should be sure to address the following in your report. Note: The bullet points below correspond to grading criteria in the rubric. Be sure your work is, at minimum, addressing each of the bullets. You may want to read the Strategic Planning Report Scoring Guide to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed. Additionally, the Guiding Questions: Strategic Planning Report document may be helpful in providing additional clarification about things to consider when creating your assignment. Both documents are linked in the Resources. The way you structure your plan and report should be based on whether you are approaching it from an appreciative inquiry viewpoint or using a specific strategic planning model. No matter which approach you choose, you will be able to address all of the criteria in your report.

Develop strategic goal statements and outcomes that support the achievement of specific quality and safety improvements for the organization, department, or community program for which you are planning.

Justify the relevance of your proposed strategic goals and outcomes in relation to the mission, values, and vision of your organization, department, or community program.

Propose how, in general, you will use relevant leadership and health care theories to help achieve the strategic goals and objectives you developed.

Analyze the degree to which your strategic goals and outcomes, and your approach to achieving them, address the use of technology and the ethical, cultural, and regulatory environments.

Evaluate the leadership qualities and skills that will be most important to successfully implementing and sustaining your strategic plan.

Communicate analyses clearly and in a way that demonstrates professionalism and respect for stakeholders and colleagues.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Submission Requirements

Length of submission: 5–8 double-spaced, typed pages. Your report should be succinct yet substantive.

Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence to support your analysis.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Resources

Strategic Planning Report Scoring Guide.

Guiding Questions: Strategic Planning Report [DOC].

Appreciative Inquiry.

Generic Processes of Appreciative Inquiry.

Appreciative Inquiry: Core Concepts | Transcript.

APA Paper Template.

APA Paper Tutorial.

Unit 9 Assignment 1

Strategic Visioning With Stakeholders

Professional Context

As a nurse leader, you may be called upon to present initiatives that you have been involved in developing to various stakeholders in your care setting. When asked to this it is vital that you are able to frame your message in a way that makes sense and addresses the viewpoints of those stakeholders. To foster the needed buy-in from your audience, you will want to focus your message so that only key and relevant information is given. Developing presentation skills can be valuable to nurse leaders who want to ensure that initiatives in their care setting are being developed, implemented, and sustained.

Scenario

Your Strategic Planning Report has been reviewed and you have been asked to present to key stakeholders at a strategic visioning session. This is the next step in moving your plan toward implementation and your practice context toward improvement. Your audience may depend on the nature of your strategic plan; if it has organization-wide implications, you may be presenting to the CEO. If it is focused on a community health project, your audience might be a group of community leaders. If your plan concerns a few departments or teams, you might be presenting to a group of nurse managers.

Instructions

For this assignment, create a presentation that will facilitate discussion about an implementation plan—including operational recommendations and strategic control mechanisms— for your strategic plan. It is recommended that this be accomplished by creating a PowerPoint presentation, with notes for each slide, and using the program to help you record audio for each slide (see the help guides linked in the Resources).

If you have technical difficulties in recording your audio, you may instead include a full script of what you intended to say in the notes section of each slide, in place of recording audio. You can also use other technology as long as it enables you to capture video of presentation slides and record audio. Please contact your instructor before using a different technology.

As mentioned earlier in the course, if you require the use of assistive technology or alternative communication methods to participate in this activity, please contact Disability Services to request accommodations.

Include, or explicitly address, the following in your presentation. Note: The bullet points below correspond to grading criteria in the rubric. Be sure your work is, at minimum, addressing each of the bullets. You may want to read the Strategic Visioning With Stakeholders Scoring Guide to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed. Additionally, the Guiding Questions: Strategic Visioning With Stakeholders document may be helpful in providing additional clarification about things to consider when creating your assignment. Both documents are linked in the Resources.

Summarize the plan you have developed for 2–3 main goals, along with your corresponding metrics, targets, and initiatives to help the organization achieve the strategic direction for improvement in quality or safety.

Explain how you would communicate your plan to stakeholders and constituencies that are essential to the implementation and sustainability of your strategic direction.

Explain the strategic goals and action steps for reconfiguring and aligning the structure, systems, shared values, management style, staff, and skills of the care setting to the main objectives.

Describe how you would evaluate the success of the implementation and outcomes of your strategies, compared to current measurement benchmarks in the care setting.

Explain the cultural, ethical, and regulatory considerations that you applied to your decision making in designing your strategic and implementation plans.

Explain your role as a nurse leader within your proposed strategic direction, citing the leadership and health care theories that helped inform your explanation.

Advocate for the relevance of your leadership qualities and skills to successfully facilitate your strategic direction.

Communicate with stakeholders in a professional and respectful way to build buy-in and partnerships around your proposed strategic direction.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Submission Requirements

Format and length of submission: A PowerPoint presentation containing 10–20 slides.

Recorded audio of you presenting your PowerPoint that is 10–15 minutes in length and is targeted at key stakeholders in the context of your strategic plan (that is, CEO if your plan is organization-wide, community leaders if it is a community health project, or the nurse manager of a specific department or team).

If you have technical difficulties recording your audio, you may instead include a full script of what you intended to say in the notes section of each slide in place of recording audio.

Submit your PowerPoint presentation and any other necessary documentation or links (if you used other technology) when you turn in this assignment.

Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence to support your analysis.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Portfolio Prompt: You may choose to save this learning activity to your ePortfolio.

Resources

Strategic Visioning With Stakeholders Scoring Guide.

Guiding Questions: Strategic Visioning With Stakeholders [DOC].

ePortfolio.

PowerPoint Presentations.

Record a slide show with narration and slide timings.

Disability Services.

APA Paper Template.

APA Paper Tutorial.