This assignment requires you to research, prepare and present a detailed project Plan for a real climate action initiative that shows how you would lead the project. Whether you actually initiate the project will be up to you, but the goal is to make this as relevant and applicable to a real world scenario as possible.
You can choose any climate-change relevant project topic or area of focus you wish but remember that the focus of the assignment is on leading change. For example, electrifying an organization’s fleet, planning adaptation policies and measures to address the effects of extreme heat domes at a nursing home, or developing a strategy to assess climate risk for a telecom company. You may use your own community, a community of people or subpopulation (e.g., sub-population in a specific geographic location such as youth in Calgary’s Bowness neighbourhood); organization, or any other existing institution or organization with which you are familiar.
When reaching out (optional) to organizations or subject matter experts for this activity, you may solicit feedback on the feasibility or design of your plans, or on information that is legally accessible to the public (i.e., publicly available information), or information about policies, procedures, professional practices, or reports. These activities do not require ethical review and official informed consent. You should not be asking those organizations/individuals to provide other opinions or information that could be considered personal and/or identifiable as that type of information does require an ethics review and informed consent.
In essence, your job in this assignment is to tell the future story of how you would lead change. What is the change that is needed? What will you do to enact that change? How will you do it? What will success look like? Why does it matter? This is an excellent opportunity to practice your communication and engagement skills while integrating what you have learned about leading change and effective leadership models. Your Plan should draw on scholarship in this area both to define the problem or required change and to support your choices in regard to what you will do and how you will do it.
Approach
This is an opportunity for you to apply what you have learned about the use of tools like design thinking and strategic foresight to develop your Plan. You are also encouraged to be creative in your approach and may choose to do things like frame your Plan as a future story, develop a visual roadmap of your journey, create graphics of network maps or key relationships, or include user experience maps. Whatever format you choose, you must still include citations and references, following APA style.
The outline below offers a suggested structure/flow for your Plan, as well as key elements to include.
Problem Definition
- Definition of the climate change problem or opportunity your Plan will address.
- Relevant background and context of the organization or community your Plan will serve.
- Description of key actors and relationships, along with their needs/desires/interests.
Future Vision
- Description of your vision of success, including desired outcomes for the organization and actors. How will things be different if you succeed?
Literature Review
- Review of relevant peer-reviewed publications and resources to support rationale for the selection of the problem/challenge (i.e., why is this important? relevant to climate action leadership?); identifying possible solutions (i.e., are there examples of similar projects either in the climate space or in another space that could be applied to this challenge?); leadership approaches (drawing on the change-leadership literature); and facilitators of and barriers to success.
- May include grey literature, white papers and reports from sources like the IPCC.
- Synthesis of your review findings.
Leadership Challenge
- Description of the specific leadership challenge presented by the problem or opportunity. What makes this particular challenge and the change it entails, difficult to achieve?
- Include a summary of the facilitators* of and obstacles and threats to change you will need to address in your Plan, including systemic barriers, dominant narratives and personal biases.
- * Facilitators of change could include things such as timing, specific champions, connections with another process or program that might open up opportunities for this etc. resource constraints, specifics about the culture that may present obstacles, political barriers)
Plan
- The Theory of change (ToC) you participated in developing in Assignment 2 as a team. This should reflect the specifics of this project, which is individual, and may include changes to the overarching ToC as it is applied individually in this project.
- Proposed leadership approach or model to be used.
- Specific steps required to effect change – to move the situation or organization from the status quo to the desired future state.
- Project Timeline with key dates and deliverables.
Engagement
- Communication and engagement plan to work with and earn the support of key actors, partners and rights holders for the change being suggested.
- Include key messages.
Resources
- Budget (estimated based on your experience/knowledge) and resources required.
- Include specific technical/scientific information, data or expertise required – as well as details on how to obtain them.
Feedback
- Getting feedback on your plan is encouraged but not required. Feedback such as observations, suggestions, comments and/or concerns from key actors, partners, and rights holders about your Plan can provide additional support for or inform refinement of your plan. If you are working on a hypothetical plan (i.e., not working with specific organization or community with whom you already have connections, then you might consider getting feedback from your peers in MACAL, or colleagues working in other spaces who may have experience with leading change, or with climate change initiatives.
Assessment
- An evaluation plan to measure success, including indicators. (Relates to outcomes from the Vision).
Bibliography
- Resources and references in APA style.
Deliverables:
- PART ONE: A 500-word outline of the Plan, due July 30, 2023.
- PART TWO: Approximately 5000-word version (20 pages double spaced) of the Plan or equivalent in another format, to be submitted on the assignment due date.PART TWO: Approximately 5000-word version (approximately 20 pages double spaced, APA) of the Plan or the equivalent in another format – this could be a recorded presentation, or a series of infographics but be sure to make these alternative formats as comprehensive as the paper-based output would be. Due August 18, 2023.
- PART THREE: A 10-minute presentation of the Plan to the class during one of the final two synchronous sessions, as well as the facilitation of a 10-minute discussion following the presentation. You can use PPT, Prezi, or some equivalent for this, or another tool (e.g., Miro).
Assessment Criteria:
While this assignment counts for 45% of your overall course grade, the assignment itself is marked out of 100%. The percentages below are estimates to give you a sense of the breakdown of this 100%.
PART ONE: Outline 5%
- Does the Outline include all the key elements?
PART TWO: Plan 85%
- Did the student include all key elements and deliverables? 5%
- Is the approach described in the Plan feasible, viable and desirable? (Learning outcome B) 15%
- Does the Plan identify the leadership challenges specific to climate action? (Learning outcome C) 15%
- Does the Plan identify the key change leadership elements and models that are required to lead climate action within the organization or community? (Learning outcome E) 20%
- Does the Plan anticipate and respond to the personal, social, organizational, and contextual factors that could undermine or derail change? (Learning outcome A) 15%
- Does the Plan reflect insights and research on effective climate leadership shared in the course? (Learning outcome C) 10%
- Does the Plan demonstrate a willingness to try something new on the part of the leader? (Learning outcome E) 5%
PART THREE: Presentation 10%
- Does the Presentation communicate the desired future in a way that motivates, supports, and enables growth at multiple scales (individual, organizational, collective)? (Learning outcome D)
See also: MACAL Academic Paper Assessment Rubric
Weight: 45%
Submit in Moodle
Assignment 3, PART 1: Submit your outline
Assignment 3, PART 2: Climate Change-Leadership Project Plan (Individual) 45%