D7115 Technical and Digital Leadership Assignment: A Critical Analysis of Organisational Digital Readiness, Strategic Transformation Planning, and Leadership in Enabling Digital Change

Faculty of Engineering & Environment – Technical and Digital Leadership

Module Learning Outcomes (MLOs) assessed:

Knowledge & Understanding:

KU1 Recognise the scope, activities and impact of the leadership and management of engineering and technology in complex digital environments

KU2 Demonstrate an awareness of the relationship between technical leadership and business performance

KU3 Synthesise a wide range of technical leadership scenarios covering R&D and operations, and identify high-level challenges and solution pathways

Intellectual / Professional Skills & Abilities:

IPA1 Ability to select, apply and evaluate appropriate practical engineering and technology management tools and techniques to solve strategic business questions and problems

IPA2 Ability to convey and translate technological concepts and data into formats and business cases that are of value to strategic decision-makers

IPA3 Ability to recognise ethical and corporate social responsibility concerns and incorporate good practice into technical leadership practice

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

PVA1 Justify and explain the need for working across technological and managerial disciplines, skillsets and organisational boundaries

PVA2 Reflect on how a systems lens and methods can support technical team development and future strategy

PVA 3 Reflect on the traits and disposition required for technical leadership and how this affects colleagues and society’s perception of technology firms and technology users

Assignment Section 1/5 : Preliminaries

Important Points

• Evidence of academic misconduct (e.g., misuse of AI, plagiarism, going over on wordcount, collaboration/collusion among students) will be taken seriously and University regulations strictly followed. You are advised to be familiar with the University definitions of academic misconduct including, use of AI, plagiarism and collusion (Northumbria, 2019).
• Please refer to Blackboard to review the Northumbria University Degree Apprenticeship Programmes Word Count Policy and Using AI in Assessment & Learning.
• You are expected to produce a word-processed answer to this assignment. Please use Arial font and a font size of 12. For code and associated output, you can use courier new, which preserves your code format and layout.
• You are required to use the Harvard Style of referencing and citation. The “Cite them right” guide is recommended for referencing and citation (Pears and Shields, 2008) which should be followed throughout your answer especially in Section 2. A good alternative is Northumbria (2016).
• For coursework submitted up to 1 day (24 hours) after the published hand-in deadline without approval, 10% of the total marks available for the assessment (i.e.100%) shall be deducted from the assessment mark.
• For clarity: a late piece of work that would have scored 65%, 55% or 45% had it been handed in on time will be awarded 55%, 45% or 35% respectively as 10% of the total marks available will have been deducted.
• Late submissions more than 1 day (24 hours) after the published hand-in deadline will not be marked and will need to be resubmitted at the next opportunity. The reassessment should where appropriate, and as determined by the Module Leader, be the same method (e.g. essay) but maybe with a different task (e.g. different essay title) or with the same task (e.g. the same essay title) as indicated in the Module handbook.

Assignment Section 2/5 : Assignment Support

There are many avenues of support available to you in the completion of your assignment:

• Office Hours: These are optional drop-in sessions where you will be able to talk to the Module Leader/a member of the Teaching Team and ask questions and receive guidance regarding the module content and the assignment (details can be found on Blackboard).
• Resources on Blackboard: There will already be content on Blackboard to aid you and the Teaching Team so ensure to regularly engage with the module space.
• Academic Community of Excellence Team (ACE): The ACE Team are there to support you with your academic study skills such as planning, reading, finding resources and writing assignments. You can contact the ACE Team via the ACE Learner Portal Page
• The Learning Support Team (LST): The LST Team are there to support learners with a neurodiversity or disability to become as successful as possible. They provide a person-centred approach aimed at mitigating the challenges that can come with being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world. To contact the LST Team please email them at DASpecialist.learningteam@qa.com
• NU Library Resource: You can access The Library’s Skills Development Team and other Library resources via your NU Student Portal that can help you navigate the online library and achieve success in your academic work.

Assignment Section 3/5 : Hand-In Procedure

• You should hand in your answer for this assignment as a single word processed document electronically on the ELP.
• PDF’s will not be accepted.
• If you have an extension, do not submit in the Final Submission Link, there will be dedicated submission links set up for extensions. If you cannot see them, please contact academicservices@qa.com
• Please ensure you submit your assignment in the correct link, submitting in the wrong link can lead to a delay in you receiving your marks or your work not being marked at all.
• Be sure to save your submission receipt as proof of submission.
• Allow plenty of time to submit your assignment on Blackboard, avoid waiting until the last minute.
• If you have any issues in uploading your submission, ensure you take timestamped screenshot/s evidencing the problem and email this along with your assignment to your Programme Inbox (mscdts.academic@qa.com) immediately.

Assignment Section 4/5 : Assignment Task

Produce a 3000-word report to critically analyse your organisations current digital readiness, propose a transformational plan, and evaluate leadership in your workplace. The report should include three sections (that are marked separately):

(1) Diagnostic Assessment – Organisational Digital Readiness
(2) Strategic Transformation Plan – A Proposal for Change
(3) Leadership Lens – You/Your Workplace’s Role in Enabling Digital Change

The report must demonstrate the valid use of concepts learned from the course and include insights about how your organisation manages digital transformation. Tasks 1 and 2 must be written in the 3rd person, Task 3 should be written in the 1st person.

This part of the assessment also requires in-depth demonstration of the application of your learning on the development of your programme portfolio, documenting the technological or digital innovation strategy creation process and evidencing your critical exploration of the topic area.

Appropriate academic sources (Journals, Conference Papers, Books, etc.) should be used throughout (and Harvard referenced) to provide evidence of an in-depth understanding of the area and justification for the decisions taken. Seek to search for ideas and concepts that help you make your assessment highly specific to your organisation. Where necessary, use appendices for supporting evidence.

Appendices and other content

You may use appendices to include relevant material such as evidence, source data and any data that backs up claims you are making and insights you are generating, such as redacted emails or documents or interview transcripts. Appendices are not directly included in your mark but do provide useful information to the reader. Your main script should only include things you consider should be in your mark. If these are tables, diagrams, graphs etc think of how much time they will take to absorb by the reader.

Ensure any diagrams, tables etc. that are within the script are given a title and referred to in the body of your assessment. Do not expect the reader to understand how they fit into your argument unless you explain how they do.

Your writing should be contextualised through the inclusion and analysis of work related examples through the lens of appropriate academic literature and models covered in this module and in your own research, where applicable.

Task 0) Business Context Statement (0 marks)

Write up to 300 words introducing your organisation and outlining the business context. Whilst this section is not included in the overall word count it will allow the reader to fully appreciate the impact of your writing.
Please note: You may use part of a previous assignments Business Context but it mostly should be written to this assignment.

Task 1) Diagnostic Assessment – Organisational Digital Readiness (30 Marks)

Critically analyse your organisation’s (or a client’s) current digital readiness. Your response must:

a) Use Rogers’ Five Barriers to DX and/or the Digital Capability Framework to assess the organisation’s digital maturity. Identify key challenges and reflect on the scope and impact of leadership and management in this context. (KU1, IPA1)

b) Evaluate how technical leadership and governance influence digital performance. (KU2)

c) Analyse how transformation barriers affect R&D and/or operations and outline how cross-disciplinary collaboration can address these challenges. (KU3, PVA1)

Task 2) Strategic Transformation Plan – A Proposal for Change (30 Marks)

Identify and propose a digital transformation opportunity or challenge in your organisation (or a client’s) and develop a strategic response, this can be based on your findings from Task 1.

Your proposal must:

a) Explain the relevance of this opportunity/challenge to technical leadership and business performance. Identify how working across boundaries adds value. (KU2, PVA1)

b) Apply one or more of Rogers’ strategic tools to build a conceptual business case. Align this with your organisation’s strategic goals and communicate its value clearly. (IPA1, IPA2)

c) Outline the key features of your proposed intervention. Evaluate the ethical, organisational and sector-wide implications, including any corporate social responsibility (CSR) concerns and good leadership practice. (KU3, IPA3, PVA2)

Task 3) Reflective Leadership Lens – You/Your Workplace’s Role in
Enabling Digital Change (40 Marks)

Reflect on how leadership in your workplace – and your own leadership approach – supports digital transformation. Your response must be written in the first person and:

a) Critically evaluate how leadership behaviours (e.g. alignment for change,
experimentation, cross-boundary collaboration) influence digital performance and perception. (KU2, IPA3, PVA1, PVA3)

b) Use Brett’s Human Full Stack model to assess your own leadership capabilities. Reflect and critically assess on:

• Your purpose in digital leadership (IPA3, PVA3)
• How you build trust and communicate across disciplines (PVA1, PVA3)
• Your systems thinking and response to complexity (PVA2, IPA3)

Please note – These assessment parts are aligned with the apprenticeship standard for your chosen technical specialism, so it is essential that all be covered to a high standard.

Your report should include as an appendix a copy of Table 1 indicating how each relevant aspect of the apprenticeship standard has been met. You may not be able to complete all within one assignment. The ‘Evidence’ should indicate where specifically within this report this can be found e.g. Section/s and Page Number/s

This is not marked, and no marks are awarded to it.

Table 1 – Apprenticeship Standard Evidence Mapping

Assignment Section 5/5: Marking Criteria

Table 1: The following assessment criteria will be used as a marking rubric to assign an overall mark for this assessment

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