ASU Leadership Capstone Project Research Matrix Worksheet

Overview

This assignment may be the single most important assignment you do in this class, next to the final capstone report! While you may feel that this assignment is repetitive of earlier course content or too simple an assignment to be meaningful, all I ask is that you reserve judgment until after the final page has been written in eight weeks. It begins with a thorough review of the two matrices in this week’s lecture. In both matrices each course corresponds to one or more Areas of Leadership Practice.

The first matrix, called the Leadership Practices Big Questions and Ideas, provides a snapshot summary of the key high level Primary and Secondary questions that are addressed by each course along with the Big Ideas normally taught in those courses. In this matrix all courses have been included. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you print a hard copy to then use as your own worksheet to edit and change questions, add your own questions and highlight those questions and ideas that are particularly useful to your project.

The second matrix, called the Leadership Practices Integrated Questions, is particularly useful from the perspective of your project development since it poses a single question at the intersection of each course. Each question takes an appreciative perspective and assumes that one Leadership Practice is the drive to a question about the other. Review this matrix before doing this assignment. Again, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you print a hard copy to then use as your own worksheet to edit and change questions, add your own questions and highlight those questions and ideas that are particularly useful to your project.

Leadership Capstone Research Matrix

This assignment is the culmination and extension of your Project Selection (submitted as a separate assignment) and your informal but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED use of the two tables found in this week’s lecture called Leadership Practices Big Questions and Ideas and Leadership Practices Integrated Questions. All three of these are resources that need to be part of your thinking as you develop your Research Matrix.

The Leadership Capstone Research Matrix you are being asked to create builds on the two tables described above but is specific to your topic. Shown in an example below, it is essentially a blank slate for you to complete based on your chosen topic. Beginning with a firm understanding of the two tables above that provide a grounding in your entire program, you will now build a set of questions that could be applied to your project.

Nine Areas of Leadership Practice

This assignment begins by working with the amended list of Areas of Leadership Practice below. This list begins with the courses from the MSL Program but makes a few adjustments. First, the Special Topics and Capstone courses are not included since they are both designed to enhance or apply content from other courses. Second, the course MSL 525, Shared Leadership and Strengths Advantage, has been divided into two different practices since they are different and substantive enough to warrant their own leadership practice. The nine Areas of Leadership Practice, which will become the backbone of your project’s Leadership Practices Assessment and Leadership Practices 2.0, can be seen below:

• Leadership Ecosystem
• Sustainable Change
• Creativity and Innovation
• Transformation through Relationships
• Communication in Open Organizations
• Excellence with Integrity
• Shared Leadership
• Strengths Advantage
• Entrepreneurial Strategic Transformation

Instructions

1. Download/Create a blank copy of the Leadership Capstone Project Research Matrix Download Leadership Capstone Project Research Matrix
2. Review the nine leadership practices as they relate to your project and ask yourself, “In what order would they best tell your story?” In your matrix move the practices into what, at least at this point, seems that they will best tell the story of your project. In the example shown below, it was decided that for the chosen topic the order seen on the left seemed to be the best fit. There is no right or wrong choice and being first or last in the list does not reflect any value judgment about the importance of that practice to your project’s success in the long run.
3. With the Leadership Practices listed in the order that fits your project best, now add up to three research questions for each Leadership Practice in your matrix. You should strongly consider printing (yes, old school hardcopy) the two matrices referenced above and Ideas (Leadership Practices Big Questions & Ideas and Leadership Practices Integrated Questions) and have them with you as you think through the key research questions for your project.Here is a suggested approach – As you develop your own set of research questions, first consider how each leadership practice itself contributes on its own to your project topic and second, how it integrates with either other leadership practices or a more contextually based question. For all three columns you are simply writing questions that you feel would help to understand and that can guide your research overall. As you have learned repeatedly in your courses, the Leadership Ecosystem requires integrated and holistic thinking about how the pieces of the leadership puzzle work together and how leadership is a system rather than a prescribed set of individual behaviors. The combination of the two matrices you were provided and the Research Matrix that you create allows you to be simultaneously granular and high level with a tool that can now serve as your road map for the remainder of your capstone project.
4. Now add any specific “Big Ideas” from the courses or your own experiences that you feel may benefit your work relative to each Leadership Practice. This is not limited, of course, to those frameworks and models that were part of the curriculum or those listed in the matrices you’ve been provided but to any useful tools that you discovered through your studies or work experience. The point is to have a single page that contains virtually all of the questions you need to be using for your inquiry knowing that you have all Areas of Leadership Practice integrated, at least for now, with which to begin your research. This completes the assignment! Here is an example Leadership Capstone Project Research Matrix Download example Leadership Capstone Project Research Matrix.

Review the Leadership Practices Capstone Project Description.pdf Download Leadership Practices Capstone Project Description.pdffor more information.