Individual Course Project Overview

A major graded component of this graduate level Strategic Staffing course is the Individual Course Project. This course project will afford you the opportunity to role-play being a key strategic employee at the vice-president / executive level of an ongoing company. In this role, you have been tasked by your executive leader to design a Strategic Workforce staffing Plan (known by the abbreviation “SWP”) for a new strategic business unit. This strategic business unit will be an additional operating division within the existing going concern. This Individual Course Project begins in Week One and continues each week with required deliverables concluding in Week’s Seven and Eight, with the Final Course Project Paper and concomitant narrated PowerPoint presentation, respectively.

Each week, as noted herein below, a different section of the Individual Course Project will be researched, completed and submitted. You will be working on your own to research the information necessary related to a specific portion of the overall plan. Your instructor will always be available to serve as your guide-on-the-side.

The areas to be included in the Individual Course Project Final Paper are: Background, Workforce Demand, Total Costs of Workforce, Workforce Analysis, Change Management, Results and Conclusion / Recommendations. The individual weekly papers, if properly researched and completed should provide sufficient information to include in the above list of sections for the final paper.

You are to be cautioned to not think of the marketing and funding of the organization, but only the building of the staff with a Strategic Workplace Planning (SWP) strategy.

The organization selection must be a currently ongoing and reasonably successful business operating within North America / The United States of America. Your main organization may have worldwide / overseas operations. But, your strategic business unit start-up will be located within North American / The United States of America. A fictitious main organization cannot be selected.

You will be working individually every week to collect data and research and submitting the necessary milestone deliverables as scheduled (see below). Further, you will be cohesively incorporating the information researched along with any feedback or suggestions from your instructor into the final written product due in Week Seven and the presentation due in Week Eight.

Be sure and read below for all the details. You can also watch the video below for an explanation of the project.

Important Note

DeVry Librarians are a wealth of information – and will help you find sources. Using the chat feature you can talk to them about what you need to find, and they will teach you how to get the best out of the libraries resources for your research for scholarly journals with an array of data bases. Integrate research from online sources as well as our University’s online library (Links to an external site.) to support your ideas and conclusions.

Do not use Wikipedia as a reference source. If you find useful information from Wikipedia, triangulate your research and find other, more credible source(s) which provide the same (or better) information, and then utilize the information from that more credible source in your paper and reference page/bibliography.

Week Individual Course Project – Milestones

Week 1

20 Points: Individual Course Project – Select an Organization

How to begin: Select an area of interest to you or an industry of interest to you.

What to do next: Select a medium to large sized organization currently operating within the industry. Consider using a publicly traded organization <or> at least an organization that you can conduct and complete current research on. This organization should be currently in business and serving a market or markets within North America / the United States. Your selected organization may have international interests and operations. But, your focus for this project in this course will be centered on North America / the United States.

The Method: Evaluate your selected organization. What do they do well? How can you tell? What can they improve on? How can you tell? Consider a perceived “gap” or area of the market that your selected organization isn’t currently operating in. Your purpose is to launch an additional strategic business unit that will market appropriate goods and / or services to this area of possible opportunity. You are to create and write a Strategic Staffing Plan for this new strategic business unit. This new strategic business unit will operate as a unit of the currently existing organization.

The Deliverable: Create a one to two page Individual Course Project proposal paper, including your selected organization name, the market the new strategic business unit will serve, brief answers to the listed questions above and why this new strategic business unit will be helpful to the overall organization.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 2

60 points: Individual Course Project I – Strategy and Evaluation

Your selected organization’s strategy is to be included. Begin by evaluating the internal and external factors that influence their continued success. Assemble background information about your selected organization. Analyze why they continue to be successful as well as the current indicators as predictors of their ongoing future success. How does the success of your selected organization impact current employees? Likewise, how do currently serving employees value their own contributions as a part of the continued success of the firm? Why is this important to consider and discuss? How can this organization’s currently demonstrated successes be leveraged to launch this proposed strategic business unit? This paper should be three-four (3-4) pages in length. Include at least four (4) scholarly references with in-text citations.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 3

60 points: Individual Course Project II – Legal and Regulatory Issues

Complete industry-specific research related to the background of your selected organization regarding legal and regulatory issues. How will such issues impact the creation and start-up of your proposed strategic business unit? How will implementing a Strategic Workforce Plan impact the main organization as well as the strategic business unit? Write a two-three (2-3) page paper and include two (2) scholarly references with in-text citations.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 4

Individual Course Project – Week 4 – Reminder

Nothing is due this week. Be sure to stay on-track with the course deliverables for this term-long project. Stay in contact with your instructor should you have any questions or concerns.

Week 5

60 points: Individual Course Project III – Hiring, Managing, and Leading

Complete a comprehensive assessment of your selected organization’s strategic workforce planning initiatives as it specifically applies to hiring, managing, and leading employees. What will be the impact on your proposed strategic business unit? Write a three-four (3-4) page paper including at least four (4) scholarly references with in-text citations.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 6

60 points: Individual Course Project IV – Preliminary Costs of Staff Training

Conduct a preliminary assessment of the anticipated costs of staff training and development for the strategic business unit under consideration. Consider carefully the long-term employment factors basing such factors on the current state of the main organization. Based on this assessment, extrapolate such rough costs and predict the future state of both the main organization and the strategic business unit. Submit a three-four (3-4) page paper. Include at least four (4) scholarly references with in-text citations.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 7

100 points: Individual Course Project – Final Course Project Paper

There are two distinct components within this one Individual Course Project – Final Course Project Paper deliverable for this week.  Be sure and include both components.

Complete and include a comprehensive assessment of all costs involved for hiring, training, and the longevity of the employees of this strategic business unit. Workforce Analytics are to be included in this section of the paper. Consider this section to be more quantitative in nature than qualitative. The aformentioned information is to be included as a component section of your final course project paper. Be sure to include at least four (4) scholarly references with in-text citations.

The course project paper must be 15-20 pages minimum in length, not including the title and reference pages. It is a compilation and refinement of the previous paper submissions including any critical suggestions provided by your instructor. The course project paper must apply APA formatting (in-text citations and references). The paper must have a minimum of 10 references at least five of them to be scholarly references. The Strategic Workplace Planning (SWP) strategy should be complex enough to demonstrate your analytical skills as well as your understanding and application of all course objectives and supporting KSA’s. The course Project paper is due in week 7.

Please remember to submit your completed paper.

Week 8

100 points: Individual Course Project – Narrated PowerPoint (R) Presentation

Use your completed set of Individual Course Project deliverables as well as your final course project paper. Create a narrated PowerPoint (R) presentation that describes the highlights, including the introduction and background, and analysis of your research and a conclusion with your specific recommendations.

Each student will develop a narrated PowerPoint (R) presentation highlighting all areas addressed in the Final Course Project Paper. This narrated presentation should cover your most important identified issues and opportunities and the Strategic Workforce System (WPS) you created throughout this entire course. Create a presentation that illustrates the highlights of your overall recommendations for your project. This presentation is to be a 10 to 12 slide presentation that highlights the key takeaways from the creation of your Strategic Workforce Plan that will, if properly implemented, ensure a successful launch of this strategic business unit as well as the continued success of this business. Remember, this is to be an audio-narrated PowerPoint (R) Presentation.

Please remember to submit your completed presentation.