MHA 505 Wk 1 – Academic Skill Sets Analysis

Using Word, prepare an evaluation of your potential academic skill sets to be gained through the MHA program in a minimum of 500 words.

Access and complete the ACHE Self-Assessment in order to identify your competence level with various health care concepts and tasks.

Analyze your strengths and weaknesses in relation to the skill sets required for your current position and a position you would like to attain.

Describe your current position and the position to which you aspire.

List the skill sets required for these positions.

Explore the courses you will be taking within the MHA program.

Choose 3 courses that you believe will provide additional skill sets to help you be more successful in your current position as well as prepare you for your desired position.

Describe how you believe those courses will help you add those skill sets to help perform more successfully in your current position and prepare you for a position with more responsibility.

Submit your assignment.

MHA 505 Wk 2 – Summative Assessment: Building Capital Through the Application of Systems Thinking

Our intention throughout the master’s program is to tie in the activities and assignments to your professional career in order to encourage you to build capital with your employer. Your master’s degree and the skills you learn while earning it should support and strengthen your current and future positions in the health care industry. To do this effectively, you will need to work with your employer and communicate your ambition to apply your knowledge and skill sets to increase positive outcomes at your organization.

Watch the video “Approaching Your Employer to Talk About Your Capstone.”

Write a 500- to 700-word summary report detailing how you believe the MHA program, and what you expect to gain from it, benefits your current position and future growth within your organization.

Identify the structural, behavioral, and intersectional (relationship) attributes of your current or most recent employer’s organization.

Create a detailed systems thinking diagram that maps the stock, inflows, outflows, and feedback loops of your organization.

Explain your diagram within your summary.

Cite 3 reputable references to support the contents of your letter (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality).

Submit your assignment.

MHA 505 Wk 3 – SWOT Analysis of Your Organization

In Week 2, you created a Systems Thinking Diagram that mapped the stock, inflows, outflows, and feedback loops of your organization. As you become more familiar with your environment and the relationships and interactions between departments and people, you will begin to discover existing strengths and weaknesses. The analysis of the weaknesses and threats to a system is essential during the initial phase to make operational improvements, and it will reveal existing opportunities to plan and execute effective solutions.

Watch the following videos:

• The Analysis Phase of a Project
• SWOT Analysis 

Read “SWOT Analysis: How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy,” and visit the University Library page Conduct a SWOT Analysis.  

Complete a SWOT Analysis of your organization. Utilize the SWOT Analysis Worksheet and complete the following steps:

• Complete a preliminary walk around the organization to scan the environment for strengths, weaknesses, potential opportunities, and potential threats (e.g., workflows, products, personnel, processes).
• Follow up with additional research that may provide clarity on elements that you are hesitant or indecisive to list.
• Review your Systems Thinking Diagram from Competency 1 and determine if there are any details you can add or adjustments you can make to enhance your understanding of the organizational system.
• Write an objective for your SWOT analysis.
• List the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, potential opportunities, and potential threats.
• Select and analyze the items that should be prioritized within your organization.
• Prepare a 350-word summary analysis of the 3 most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing your organization.
• Analyze and discuss why you believe each is important.

Cite 3 reputable references to support your SWOT Analysis summary (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality).

Submit your assignment.

MHA 505 Wk 4 – Summative Assessment: Gemba Walk and Opportunities for Improvement

Now that you have completed your SWOT Analysis, select and analyze the areas in need of improvement, and narrow down the list of places to do your Gemba walk.

Use your SWOT analysis to focus your Gemba walk. Identify and analyze weaknesses and threats to review during your walk.

While completing your walk, look for ways to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce waste, improve a product, or streamline a process.

Write a 750-word Opportunities for Improvement Recommendation report for management on your observations and recommendations from your Gemba walk, based on your SWOT analysis from Week 3. Complete the following in your report:

• Include a summary of the organization (e.g., products or services, mission, and vision).
• Provide context (where did you focus your Gemba, and why?).
• Explain how you utilized your SWOT analysis to focus your Gemba walk.
• List your Gemba observations:
• What was the goal of your Gemba?
• Where did you go?
• What did you observe?
• Who did you observe?
• Prepare an analysis of your observations.
• List key takeaways, providing evidence for each.
• Choose 1 long-term and 3 short-term opportunities to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce waste, improve a product, or streamline a process within the organization.

Cite any references that support your work (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality).

Submit your assignment.

MHA 505 Wk 5 – Group: Root Cause Analysis

Now that you have completed a Gemba Walk—where you’ve gathered information about the organization and identified opportunities to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce waste, improve a product, or streamline a process—it’s time to look closer at these potential improvements and get to the root cause of why the issues are occurring. After reviewing these potential opportunities for improvements, you will analyze how you can apply systems thinking at the strategic level for your organization in the Week 6 Summative Assessment.

For more information about how to use 5 Whys or a Fishbone diagram to conduct a root cause analysis, check out the following videos:

• 5 Whys: Getting to the Root of a Problem Quickly 
• Cause and Effect Analysis

Individually, create either a 5 Whys or a Fishbone diagram for one of the opportunities (short-term or long-term) that you identified during your Gemba walk. Work through each step of the 5 Whys or Fishbone processes to find the root cause(s) of the problem and the potential opportunity for its solution within your organization.

Post your diagram to your team forum for review.

As a team, review each team member’s diagram and utilize the discussion to ask questions, provide input, or make suggestions on their root cause analysis.

Each member should write a 100- to 200-word summary of the feedback they received from their team as well as an explanation of why or why it did not help them refine their root cause analysis.

Combine the responses into a single document and submit it to your instructor.

Submit your assignment.

MHA 505 Wk 6 – Summative Assessment: Strategic Systems Thinking Proposal

Review the SWOT Analysis you completed in Week 3. Focus on the bigger picture that addresses your organization’s overall strategy in terms of the strengths and opportunities you identified.

Prepare a 500- to 700-word Strategic Systems Thinking Strategy Proposal that identifies 3 key organization strengths and the role they play in identifying and building upon 3 key opportunities that fit your organization’s overall strategy.

In the proposal, include:

• 3 key organization strengths and the role they play in identifying and building upon 3 key opportunities that fit your organization’s overall strategy
• An analysis of the following:
• Elements of “chaos,” identified through your 5 Whys or Fishbone diagram, that can be turned into “butterfly effects” or potential large-scale strategic opportunities for your organization
• Potential opportunities for projects that apply creativity in the solution of identified “chaotic” issues or problems within your organization
• Potential leverage points that will help your organization build on a strength(s) to take advantage of strategic opportunities
• A description of how chaos theory applies to your strategic opportunities
• A final systems thinking diagram that focuses on strategic project opportunities for your organization

Cite 3 reputable references to support your diagram and paper (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality).

Format your references according to APA guidelines.

Submit your assignment.