The Masters Capstone Project

Masters Capstone Project

Course Description and Instructions

Course Description

The Masters Capstone Project is a supervised course that calls upon the Master Degree candidate to apply much of the knowledge, skill and insight acquired in the program to an organization of the candidate's choosing. In doing so, the candidate demonstrates the ability to transfer the core principles learned in the immersive management develop program at Central Products to his/her own current and future career. The course deliverable may be a Master's Thesis or comprehensive Case Study. In either case, the candidate will demonstrate an in-depth understanding of how organizations and individuals achieve success, sustainability and significance by managing products, processes, people, money, information, ideas, physical resources and, of course, themselves.

Instructions

A. Selection & Description. The candidate selects an organization. This can be Central Products, the candidate's current employer, or an anticipated future employer, but must be an organization with which the candidate is thoroughly familiar. The candidate is advised to choose carefully. The organization (or organization unit) must be manageable but large enough to include major elements of Management, Marketing, Human Resources, Information Systems and Leadership. Access to information will be critical to success in this course.

The candidate must provide a comprehensive description of the organization to include

the following:

1. The type of organization (government, private, public, manufacturing etc.)

2. The organization web site.

3. The total number of employees.

4. The organization structure.

5. The industry and markets.

6. A list of major competitors.

7. A clear statement of the organization's objectives and how they are measured.

8. General performance measures for the last three years.

9. Specific industry and company resources proposed to be used in this project.

B. Selection Approved. Based on the description, the candidate's selection should be approved in writing by the course supervisor (and if appropriate by the Graduate Committee). This approval should be required before the candidate proceeds to next steps.

C. Questionnaire & Focus. The candidate completes the Masters Capstone Project Questionnaire and submits to the course supervisor and indicates at least four of the nine subject areas (middle column of the diagram) that will be the focus of the project. The supervisor should approve in writing before the candidate proceeds to the next step.

D. Rough Draft. The candidate completes and submits to the course supervisor a rough draft that should include:

Chapter One: An overview of the organization and its current level of performance, including comparisons to both stated objectives and key competitors. This is a more detailed expansion on Part A, supported with data, documentation.

Chapter Two: Focus area #1