Create a detailed, integrated project charter to address a healthcare gap, need, or improvement at your practicum site. Introduction In NHS-FPX8040, you prepared a preliminary project charter. At that time, you may not have secured your practicum site or preceptor yet. Now that these are in place, in this course you will delve more deeply into creating a project charter appropriate for your practicum site’s needs. You may be able to use some of the project charter work you did in the previous course. At the same time, you may find you need to completely retool your work as it may no longer be appropriate for your practicum site. This is the changing nature of doctoral projects.  As we learn more information, doctoral projects change. Your ability to manage this ambiguity and change will be critical to your successfully completing your doctoral program. In this assessment, you will create a detailed, integrated project charter to address a healthcare gap, need, or improvement at your practicum site. You will need to obtain input from your practicum site about how you can help to meet their needs. After submitting your project charter, you will receive your faculty member’s feedback on your charter’s alignment with department objectives, academic rigor, coherency, and readiness for Institutional Review Board (IRB) submission. Demonstration of Proficiency By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria: Competency 1: Create a project charter to address a clinical or organizational problem or take advantage of an opportunity for improvement within a health care setting. Clearly describe the people who will be involved in and affected by a project. Clearly describe an overview of all aspects of a project plan. Clearly describe the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to a project plan. Clearly describe the ethical considerations, constraints, external dependencies, and communication strategy of a project plan. Clearly describe the outcome measures related to a project plan. Clearly describe the data collection procedures related to a project plan. Describe a project that could, within 8 to 12 weeks, produce a meaningful, sustainable change in practice or process that can be empirically evaluated, with minimal or no risk to participants or the organization. Synthesize scholarly, authoritative evidence supporting each part of the project charter. Competency 4: Address assessment purpose in a well-organized text, incorporating appropriate evidence and tone in grammatically sound sentences. Write clearly and coherently, using communication style and vocabulary appropriate for scholarly work. Correctly reference and cite scholarly and/or authoritative sources. Preparation To successfully prepare for this assessment, you will need to: Ensure that your project aligns with your pract.

1. Create a detailed, integrated project charter to address a
healthcare gap, need, or improvement at your practicum site.
Introduction
In NHS-FPX8040, you prepared a preliminary project charter.
At that time, you may not have secured your practicum site or
preceptor yet. Now that these are in place, in this course you
will delve more deeply into creating a project charter
appropriate for your practicum site’s needs. You may be able to
use some of the project charter work you did in the previous
course. At the same time, you may find you need to completely
retool your work as it may no longer be appropriate for your
practicum site. This is the changing nature of doctoral projects.
As we learn more information, doctoral projects change. Your
ability to manage this ambiguity and change will be critical to
your successfully completing your doctoral program.
In this assessment, you will create a detailed, integrated project
charter to address a healthcare gap, need, or improvement at
your practicum site. You will need to obtain input from your
practicum site about how you can help to meet their needs.
After submitting your project charter, you will receive your
faculty member’s feedback on your charter’s alignment with
department objectives, academic rigor, coherency, and readiness
for Institutional Review Board (IRB) submission.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will
demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies
through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

2. Competency 1: Create a project charter to address a clinical or
organizational problem or take advantage of an opportunity for
improvement within a health care setting.
Clearly describe the people who will be involved in and
affected by a project.
Clearly describe an overview of all aspects of a project plan.
Clearly describe the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats related to a project plan.
Clearly describe the ethical considerations, constraints, external
dependencies, and communication strategy of a project plan.
Clearly describe the outcome measures related to a project plan.
Clearly describe the data collection procedures related to a
project plan.
Describe a project that could, within 8 to 12 weeks, produce a
meaningful, sustainable change in practice or process that can
be empirically evaluated, with minimal or no risk to participants
or the organization.
Synthesize scholarly, authoritative evidence supporting each
part of the project charter.
Competency 4: Address assessment purpose in a well-organized
text, incorporating appropriate evidence and tone in
grammatically sound sentences.

3. Write clearly and coherently, using communication style and
vocabulary appropriate for scholarly work.
Correctly reference and cite scholarly and/or authoritative
sources.
Preparation
To successfully prepare for this assessment, you will need to:
Ensure that your project aligns with your practicum site
expectations and the DNP expectations for doctoral projects.
Consult this resource for guidance:
Acceptable vs. Unacceptable SoNHS DNP Projects [PDF]
.
Definition of Research
.
Conduct a comprehensive review of the literature to gather data
that will support your identified need, intervention, and
assessment “instrument(s)”:
Focus your research on current resources available through
peer-reviewed articles and professional and government
websites. Current means less than five years old.

4. Use these research guides for help in identifying scholarly and
authoritative sources:
Nursing Doctoral (DNP) Research Guide
.
Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing & Health Sciences
.
Instructions
Note
: The assessments in this course must be completed in the order
presented; subsequent assessments should be built on both your
earlier work and your instructor’s feedback on earlier
assessments. If you choose to submit assessments prematurely,
without considering and integrating your instructor’s feedback,
your assessment may be returned ungraded, resulting in your
loss of an assessment attempt.
This assessment has been identified as a Signature Assessment.
Signature assessments serve a dual purpose: to meet the
competencies in the course where the signature assessment
appears and acquire skills needed to demonstrate competencies
specific to the completion of the Doctoral Project Report.
Learners must successfully meet the established criteria for
demonstrating competence on this assessment in order to
successfully complete the course (see University Policy 3.4.07
Grading). Completion of this course is a program-specific

5. requirement. Consequently, learners must pass this course in
order to remain in good academic standing (see University
Policy 3.01.04 Academic Standing).
This assessment also includes review by a Secondary Reviewer
to ensure the work meets doctoral expectations for writing,
content, connection to the discipline, scholarship, quality,
integrity, and ethical compliance. Secondary review is both an
essential program expectation and important opportunity for
learners. A hallmark of doctoral learners, in particular, is
openness to critique and responsiveness to feedback. Like any
scholarly endeavor (e.g., journal article, book chapter, or
dissertation), the doctoral project will benefit from the
integration of feedback from a reviewer and a process of
ongoing revision at each stage of development. Learners may
also reasonably expect to incorporate revisions and refinements
of components of earlier completed signature assessments as
they advance through the program to ensure the coherence and
alignment of their completed project. A doctoral-level project
should, therefore, be viewed as a work-in-progress that is not
completed until the final Dean review and approval is issued.
As you begin work, you may find the following activities
helpful to completing a scholarly, successful project charter.
Note: These activities are not mandatory; they are optional:
Seek out free writing workshops and other resources available
through the
Capella Writing Center
. The Writing Center’s workshops address such topics as:
correct APA usage, paper organization, synthesis of material,
and so on.
Note: Remember that this keystone course will help determine

6. whether you are ready to proceed with your doctoral project.
You will want to do everything you can to ensure that your
critical thinking, research, and writing skills are at the doctoral
level.
For this assessment, you will populate the three parts of the
Project Charter Template [DOCX]
with detailed information. Use the
Project Charter Proposal Checklist [PDF]
to ensure all content is included. Faculty will use the checklist
to provide additional feedback.
Part 1 includes these sections:
General Project Information.
Project Team.
You may find the work you did in the Team Effectiveness in
Health Care Settings assessment helpful to you as you complete
this portion of your Project Charter.
Stakeholders.
Part 2 is the Project Overview and includes these components:

7. Project Description/
Write the project description in a narrative style. Avoid bullet
points and incomplete sentences.
Evidence to Support Need (background and significance).
Be sure to provide the most relevant, data-driven evidence to
support key points.
Project Purpose/Business Case.
SMART Objectives (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant,
Time-Bound).
Deliverables.
Project Scope.
Project Milestones.
Part 3 includes these sections:
Note:
You may find the work you did in your Ethics Analysis
assessment helpful as you complete this section of your project

8. charter.
SWOT Analysis.
Known Major Risks.
Ethical Considerations.
Constraints.
External Dependencies.
Communication Strategy:
Consider questions like these in your communication
strategy: Will you hold an in-person or video conference-
kickoff meeting? How will you communicate with all involved
parties (email, telephone, periodic meetings, project tools, et
cetera)?
Proposed Outcomes.
Data Collection Plan.
Example Assessment
: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a
Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like: