NR 631 Week 6 Assignment Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
NR 631 Week 6 Assignment Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Purpose
The process of project management has five phases: (1) design and initiation, which you just completed; (2) finalizing your plan before implementation, which you will do now; (3) implementation; (4) monitor and control; and finally, (5) evaluation and lessons learned, as well as knowledge transfer.
During Phase 2 (finalizing the project plan), you will continue to create the tools and documents you will need when you implement your project as the project manager in Phase 3.
Week 4: Communications Plan
Week 5: Deliverables and Critical Success Factors (CSFs)
Week 6: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Gantt Chart
Week 7: Risk Management and Human Resource Management Plans
In this assignment, you will define and document the project’s tasks and project’s deliverables and their relationships to each. You will develop the WBS and project timelines using a Gantt chart.
The WBS identifies the project’s tasks that need to be completed by priority, and it flows into and facilitates project scheduling. This breakdown helps the project team identify all tasks needed to get the work done and the resources necessary to complete it. This framework allows you to assign tasks to individual team members, making them accountable for those tasks in the process. It is important that all tasks be identified and broken down, because project delays or even failure frequently result from forgotten or overlooked tasks rather than imprecise guesstimates.
The Gantt chart, named after Henry Gantt, clearly shows the start and completion dates for all major project activities and subtasks. The Gantt chart is straightforward, easy to understand, and simple to change. It provides a snapshot of the project, and one can immediately identify task durations and distinguish tasks dependent upon other tasks to be completed before they are started. Understanding of all dependencies is critical for the project manager, who is ultimately responsible for time, budgets, and resource allocation.
To assist you, there is a PowerPoint file demonstrating a two possible WBS formats and a WBS checklist, above. A click-by-click tutorial for developing the Gantt chart using Excel can be found in the week 6 lesson content.
Course Outcomes
This assignment enables the student to meet the following Course Outcomes (COs):
CO 1: Apply evidence-based leadership skills and concepts in the planning of an executive-level practice change project. (PO 4,5)
CO 2: Develop an evidence-based foundation to lead organizational change using current knowledge, standards of practice, and research from current literature. (PO 4,5)
Requirements
Complete the WBS and Gantt chart documents. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.
Grammar, spelling, punctuation, references, and citations must be consistent with formal academic writing and APA format as expressed in the current edition of the APA manual.
Preparing the paper
All project tasks must be identified and broken down in your WBS. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.
The Gantt chart must provide timelines for all major project tasks and subtasks following the Excel sample. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.
Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly using the current edition of the APA manual.
Also Read: NR 631 Nurse Executive Concluding Graduate Experience I Week 5 Assignment
Grammar, spelling, punctuation, references, and citations must be consistent with formal academic writing.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Participation for MSN
The ideas and beliefs underpinning the threaded discussions (TDs) guide students through engaging dialogues as they achieve the desired learning outcomes/competencies associated with their course in a manner that empowers them to organize, integrate, apply and critically appraise their knowledge to their selected field of practice. The use of TDs provides students with opportunities to contribute level-appropriate knowledge and experience to the topic in a safe, caring, and fluid environment that models professional and social interaction. The TD’s ebb and flow is based upon the composition of student and faculty interaction in the quest for relevant scholarship. Participation in the TDs generates opportunities for students to actively engage in the written ideas of others by carefully reading, researching, reflecting, and responding to the contributions of their peers and course faculty. TDs foster the development of members into a community of learners as they share ideas and inquiries, consider perspectives that may be different from their own, and integrate knowledge from other disciplines.
Each weekly threaded discussion is worth up to 25 points. Students must post a minimum of two times in each graded thread. The two posts in each individual thread must be on separate days. The student must provide an answer to each graded thread topic posted by the course instructor, by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT, of each week. If the student does not provide an answer to each graded thread topic (not a response to a student peer) before the Wednesday deadline, 5 points are deducted for each discussion thread in which late entry occurs (up to a 10 point deduction for that week). Subsequent posts, including essential responses to peers, must occur by the Sunday deadline, 11:59 p.m. MT of each week.
Discussion Criteria | 4–5 points | 2–3 points | 0–1 point |
---|---|---|---|
NOTE: There is only one discussion thread in Week 8. | |||
Support from Literature
(5 points possible per graded thread) |
Support from the literature is present and includes a minimum of one scholarly in-text citation and matching reference, per each thread topic per week. | Support from literature is present (in-text citation and reference) but is not scholarly. | No support from the literature. |
Application of Course Knowledge
(5 points possible per graded thread) |
Post contributes unique perspectives or insights gleaned from personal experience or examples from the healthcare field. | Post has limited application of course knowledge and demonstration of perspectives. | Post does not reflect application of course knowledge and personal insights or examples from healthcare. |
Organization(5 points possible per graded thread) | Post presents information in logical, meaningful, and understandable sequence, clearly relevant to the discussion topic. | Information is sometimes unclear and difficult to follow. | Post is not relevant to discussion questions. |
Interactive Dialogue
(5 points possible per graded thread) |
Responds substantively to at least one topic-related post of a student peer. A substantive post adds content or insights or asks a question that will add to the learning experience and/or generate discussion. | Responds to student peers, but the nature of the response to topic-related posts is not substantive. | Does not respond to any topic-related posts of student peers. |
Grammar, Syntax, APA Format
(5 points possible per graded thread) |
APA format, grammar, spelling, and/or punctuation are accurate, or with zero to three errors. | Four to six errors in APA format, grammar, spelling, and syntax noted. | Post contains greater than six errors in APA format, grammar, spelling, and/or punctuation or repeatedly makes the same errors after faculty feedback. |
Total Participation Requirements per discussion thread | 0 points lost
Student answers the threaded discussion question or topic on one day and posts a second response on another day. |
-5 points
Student did not meet this requirement. |
|
Early Participation Requirement
per discussion thread |
0 points lost
The student must provide a substantive answer to the graded discussion question(s)/topic(s), posted by the course instructor (not a response to a peer), by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT of each week. |
-5 points
The student did not provide an answer to the graded discussion question(s)/topic(s), posted by the course instructor (not a response to a peer), by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. MT of each week. |
NOTE: To receive credit for a week’s discussion, students may begin posting no earlier than the Sunday immediately before each week opens. Unless otherwise specified, access to most weeks begins on Sunday at 12:01 a.m. MT, and that week’s assignments are due by the next Sunday by 11:59 p.m. MT. Week 8 opens at 12:01 a.m. MT Sunday and closes at 11:59 p.m. MT Wednesday. Any assignments and all discussion requirements must be completed by 11:59 p.m. MT Wednesday of the eighth week.
Webliography Disclaimer
The purpose of the Webliography is to provide students with annotated bibliographies of world wide websites relevant to their courses. These websites are not meant to be all inclusive of what is available for each course’s subjects and have not been sanctioned as academically rigorous or scholarly by Chamberlain College of Nursing. Please exercise caution when using these websites for course assignments and references.