WGU MBA-HM first impressions and ongoing comments

[dmjacobsen]

So, I've been working on Task 3 for about 18 days now, and I should be done today. I completed the consultant work a couple of days ago, but there's another part to the paper where the student reflects back on lessons learned in the MBA program. Personally, I think that this portion of the task is a waste of time, as you're expected to churn out some feel-good nonsense about how the MBA has prepared you for the world, but hey... if there's one thing I've learned in my time on this planet, it's how to jump through a hoop.

The consultant work itself was pretty interesting, and it's really put a spotlight on me as a leader in my department. My manager was very impressed with what I came up with. It was a multi-pronged approach to increase patient volume for our Emergency Department, which has seen an average decrease in volume of about 8.5% per year for the past 2 years in a time when ED volume is increasing almost everywhere else in the country. She wants me to present the results of the project at a hospital growth committee meeting in a couple of months to try to get some administrative support for some of the project interventions.

One snag I've run into -- WGU requires that your client sign a "Client Verification Form", which is basically just a document that says, yes, we're allowing this person to work on a project for us. Well, I asked my manager to sign the form on 1/30. Being the bureaucratic organization that my employer is, my manager couldn't just sign it. She had to send it up the chain, past our hospital's CNO and CEO, into corporate legal, and who knows where else. The funny thing is, I've already gotten a ton of sensitive information from a lot of people in my company, with the assistance of my manager, so it's kind of silly that I'm basically twiddling my thumbs at this point to get approval to work on a project that I've already completed. The reasoning is that our organization has to have a formal agreement with any school that sends students to us. Buuuut, I'm not just a student -- I actually work for the company.

It's just a huge mess and I hope they get over the hemming and hawing soon.

So, my advice here is that if you work for a large, bureaucratic organization, submit that form through your chain of command WELL IN ADVANCE of working on Task 3. It will save you a headache on the back end.