Tools to Map Problems and Ideas

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Assignment: Your Creativity Toolkit: Tools to Map Problems and Ideas

 

Often, when we have difficulties completing a project, these difficulties arise from having the wrong tools for the job. It is difficult to hang a picture frame on your wall if you do not have a hammer and a nail, just as you would struggle to complete a project at work without adequate resources. In your past, when you have faced challenges at work that require creative solutions, did you have the correct tools to address the challenge and generate creative solutions?

This week, you start assembling a set of tools, techniques, and practices to enhance your creativity. In the future, whenever you face challenges that require creative solutions, you can rely on these tools to clarify your problem and imagine a solution to it. For this Assignment, you will practice using a clarifying tool to jumpstart your creativity.

There are three parts to this Assignment that you will combine into one Word document submission:

Part 1: Identify two professional challenges

  • Briefly describe five professional challenges that you currently face or anticipate facing soon. Then, rephrase each of those challenges as questions.
  • Choose the two questions from your list that you feel are the most robust and challenging for you. Provide rationale for your choice of questions.

Part 2: Create your mind maps for each question

  • Use a mind map to create a separate map for each question. You may refer to your MindTool mind map resource for an example. Your mind maps should be as expansive as you can make them. Each of your questions should branch into at least four related components and/or issues. Expand on each of these branches using as many sub-branches as needed to explore the complexity and connective possibilities available to each question. To create your mind maps, you may use Microsoft Word or another format of your choice. However, if you are planning to use a non-standard piece of software, be sure you can save the file in a format that you can insert into a Word document. You should also check with your instructor to make sure that you will be able to submit the file in the online classroom and that your instructor will be able to open the file.
  • Insert your mind maps into your Word document as an appendix.

Part 3: Analyze your results

After reflecting on the mind-mapping exercise and examining your mind maps:

  • Provide your analysis of the clarifying process and role mind maps play in helping you clarify your professional challenges. Evaluate your experience using the mind-mapping tool to identify, organize, and clarify factors that need to be addressed to meet your professional challenge. Explain whether you think you would have learned as much about your professional challenges if you had not used this tool.
  • Explain how you might use this process for other professional or workplace applications.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your Week 3 Assignment should be 3–4 pages (1.5–2 pages if single spaced), excluding a title page and references.

The Team That Is Not a Team

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Assignment: The Team That Is Not a Team 9

Assignment: The Team That Is Not a Team 9

In the Discussion you addressed the unproductive team that needs motivation. You reviewed leadership in the Reading area, and leadership styles and negotiation strategies in the Learning Activity. In this Assignment you address leadership and the use of negotiation strategies to resolve members’ conflicts to ultimately make them a real team.

Make sure to complete the Learning Activities before you begin this Assignment. Then, read the scenario and address the checklist items in a substantive manner.

The TotsToys Corporation is using self-managing product development teams. The team includes:

R. Smithers (Sales)

P. Harrington (Marketing)- unofficial leader of the team

K. Norrosky (Research and Development)

L. Lee (Finance)

T. Schumacher (Manufacturing)

A. Rossi (Customer Service)

The team, although it is self-managing, ultimately reports to E. Vonich, Toys Division Director. Morale in the team is low, competition among certain team members (like Smithers and Harrington) is high, and confusion about what the priorities and ultimate goals are is high. Many meetings degenerate into arguments between Smithers and Harrington. The team has yet to come up with any new products, resulting in a stressful situation.

Vonich does not realize any problems with the team as yet. Smithers and Schumacher have been overheard saying that they are both very frustrated with the lack of progress and results with the team. They think Harrington is only interested in receiving a promotion and are frustrated because they feel the leader does not adequately support or represent all of the team members. All the members agree that, every time there is an executive committee meeting, Harrington constantly wants more research and more information from other team members versus tackling the task of new product development.

Theoretically, team leadership is shared between Vonich and Harrington, but Vonich deems his time too important and tells Harrington he must run it. Harrington on the other hand has never been a team leader and does not seem to act but simply to react if it is his priority concerning an issue.

Checklist:

Identify the teamwork problems.

Describe the leadership style evidenced and the leadership problems.

What should be negotiated and how?

Explain which negotiation strategies might assist in resolving conflict amongst the team members.

Access the Assignment rubric.

 

Attachments:

Visual Explanation PowerPoint

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Assignments_Visual Explanation PowerPoint

In the PAD 510 Assignments_Visual Explanation PowerPoint, I make the distinction between a policy area and a policy. For example, healthcare is a policy area. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“Obamacare”) and the American Health Care Act of 2017 (“Trumpcare”) are two different presidential policies for the policy area called healthcare.

For this discussion question, identify the policy area that you will be using for your assignments along with the names of two Presidents and the names of the two policies that you will be using for Assignment 1 (due at the end of Week 3).

Note: You will be able to change your mind up to the time that you submit Assignment 1. Here, I want to make sure that you understand the requirements of the Assignment.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

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Assignment: Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

 

 

This week, you have an opportunity to use that method and ask other people what they think about diversity and culture. You can then blog about the answers you received as well as your new insights.

For this assignment:

Call, write to, or talk to at least three friends, family members, acquaintances, and/or colleagues. Include at least one person who you believe is in some ways culturally different from you (a different gender, race, class, religion, abilities, age, etc.).

Ask each person to share:

Their definition of culture

Their definition of diversity

Then reflect on the answers you received and ask yourself:

Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

Which aspects have been omitted—and what are some examples of such omission?

In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

Personal Strategy,

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Assignment: Personal Strategy,

Using “The Prophet” (Kahlil Gibran) as a reference, create a short position paper on the topic of personal strategy. Consider the following: Personal strategies, when embraced by the individual, can impact a community or perhaps society as a whole.

[NOTE – The text is divided into numerous chapters including self-knowledge, friendship, time, freedom, good and evil, work, etc. You may wish to focus your efforts on one particular chapter or you may prefer to dabble with different quotes from different chapters.You can use this version from Project Gutenburg or find an alternative.]

Your paper needs to include:

Intro – In one paragraph briefly state your position agreeing or disagreeing with this statement.
Body – List 5 specific references (quotes) that support your position. Briefly explain each quote in your own words.
Conclusion – Consider personal strategies employed during struggles, accomplishments, challenges or achievements you have experienced that have impacted others in your community/society/family/sorority or fraternity/res hall/group/team. In other words, how have choices you have made impacted others? How have these choices framed your own personal strategy?

Generalist Practice

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Assignment: Generalist Practice

Generalist practice in social work is an approach to client service that makes use of a variety of methods, schools of thought, and perspectives. The term describes social work practice that is not limited to only one method or point of view. Generalist social work practitioners stay informed of current research in their field, and they select methods that seem most appropriate to the different situations that their clients face.

For this Assignment,select one of the case studies provided in the Readings. Consider different ways of describing generalist practice and how you might identify it in social work.

Submit by Day 7 a 2- to 3-page paper in which you address the following criteria:

Create a definition of generalist practice using your own words. Identify at least three specific examples of generalist practices you see portrayed in your selected case study. Indicate the characteristics that make each an example of generalist practice. Explain the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of each example in terms of its benefit to clients.

Case study: Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Working with survivors of sexual abuse and trauma: The case of Brenna. In Social work case studies: Foundation year. Retrieved from http://www.vitalsource.com

Compare and Contrast Two Famous Educators

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Assignment: Compare and Contrast Two Famous Educators

Week 3 – Assignment: Compare and Contrast Two Famous Educators using APA Style

Instructions

For this assignment, read the Lourenco (2012) article listed in the Books and Resources for this Week as the primary information required completing the paper. If you like, you can include other scholarly articles of your choosing to further support your ideas and improve your paper; however, it is not required. The paper will focus on the following topics of discussion using appropriate citations:

A brief summary of the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky

Similarities in the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky

Differences between the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky

What can be gained by a better understanding of these theories

Keep your paper within the suggested length (writing in a concise manner is one aspect of scholarly writing). A critical component in this assignment is that you write clearly, paraphrase correctly, and use citations and references appropriately. Your paper will be submitted to a text-matching service to see how well you were able to discuss these ideas in your own words using appropriate APA citations; Your instructor will share the report with you so you can see how you did.

Length: 3-5 pages, not including title page and reference page.

References: One resource as mentioned above.

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Be sure to include citations for quotations and paraphrases with references in APA format and style where appropriate.

Briefly discuss the ways a realistic budget will benefit the owner of Babycakes 

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Briefly discuss the ways a realistic budget will benefit the owner of Babycakes

Assignment: Budget Planning and Control (200 points)

Question description

 

 

Babycakes, a specialty bakery, is the company that will be considered for all parts of your budget planning and control report. For this assignment, you will develop a three to four (3 – 4) page paper in which you address the following.

  1. Briefly discuss the ways a realistic budget will benefit the owner of Babycakes versus having no budget at all. Be sure to use Babycakes as the company and any specific product details in your explanation.
  2. Prepare a sales budget for the LA Babycakes store for the 4th quarter of 2016. Present the number of units, sales price, and total sales for each month; include October, November, and December, and a total for the quarter. Use one-half of the Valentine’s Day sales as the basis for a usual day in the new quarter. Use 30 days for each month. Calculate the total sales for each month for October, November, and December.
  3. Create three (3) new products, one (1) for each of the three (3) holiday seasons in the 4th quarter. Estimate the sales units, sales price, and total sales for each month. Describe the assumptions used to make these estimates. Include an overview of the budget in the report, presenting the actual budget as an appendix with all data and calculations. Add these amounts to your sales budget.
  4. The owner of Babycakes is interested in preparing a flexible budget rather than the static budget she currently uses. She does not understand why, when sales increase, her static budget often shows an unfavorable variance. Explain how a flexible budget will overcome this problem. Use the details of your newly prepared budget for the 4th quarter of 2016 to address her concern.
  5. Imagine that Babycakes is facing a financial challenge that is causing the actual amount of money that it spends to become significantly more than its budgeted amount. Include a discussion of your own unique cause of the overspending. Explain the corrective actions needed to address these challenges.
  6. Integrate relevant information from at least three (3) quality academic resources in this assignment.  Note: Please do not use your textbook as an academic resource. Also, Wikipedia and other Websites that are unreliable do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements.

  • Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
  • Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
  • An abstract is not required.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

  • Evaluate management control systems and examine their relationship with accounting and planning, including feedback and non-financial performance measurements.
  • Evaluate decision-making tools for capital investments, budgeting, and budgeting controls.
  • Analyze financial accounting tools and techniques that convert financial accounting data into information for decision making.
  • Use technology and information resources to research issues in financial accounting for managers.
  • Write clearly and concisely about financial accounting using proper writing mechanics.

Captains of Industry

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Assignment: “Captains of Industry” or “Robber Barons”

Question description

 

For this assignment, I would like you to write an essay concerning three of the Industrialist of the late 1800’s; Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and Jay Gould. Some areas of investigation for your essay could be where were they were born; did they serve during the Civil War (national service vs. personal interest); what Industry did they ‘innovate’ and what methods did they use to eliminate competition; were these men vital to their period? These are but a few examples you can use others which you see fit.

Looking back at your research, I do want you to include the answer to this question, “Do you find the results of these men’s actions deserving of praise or condemnation; are they deserving of the title of Captain of Industry or Robber baron?” Briefly explain how you formed your belief (for this part you are not evaluated on your opinion but on your view due to your research. i.e. He was a great Captain of Industry because he made a lot of money… Not a strong answer…, or He was a robber baron because he was really mean… again more of a gut-reaction). I’m looking a few examples found through research which validate your assertion.

Your essay should be double-spaced, around 2-3 pages in length.

It should have a clear Introduction, supporting paragraphs, and a strong conclusion (this will be part of the grading process).

Please cite at least three or more reliable sources at the end of your work (not part of the overall page count). You are going to come across many, many student essays concerning these men and topic; those would NOT be considered reliable sources. Due to this, be careful when doing your research; make sure your sources are reliable and academically sound. If you have a question about any sources, I’d be glad to offer assistance.

Is unskilled labor really unskilled

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Is unskilled labor really unskilled

Assignment:

Assignment:

Minimum wages are normally associated with unskilled labor or apprentices. Because you support fair trade and local, sustainable, and organic products, you feel compelled to be fair to your less skilled staff and decide to pay them above minimum wages. In the long run, do you think you will benefit from your decisions to be “fair”?

Write 250 words about how you will compensate your less-skilled staff. You must include answers to the following questions:

  • Is unskilled labor really unskilled?
  • Do you believe minimum wages are necessary to protect the interests of the employee or the employer?
  • In the long run, do you think you will benefit from your decisions to be “fair”? Why? Why not?