Assessment 2 of MBA-FPX5002 is the development plan: the gaps your first assessment surfaced, converted into dated actions, assigned resources, and measures another person could verify. Think of it as a business case where the asset under investment is you. FlexPath scores it criterion by criterion, and the criteria consistently price the difference between an intention and a plan. What follows is the six-step method our tutors use, a structure mapped to the criteria, and an annotated excerpt. Or skip the drafting: a premium original sample for this exact deliverable arrives in 24 to 48 hours, with free revisions until the guide is satisfied.
One honesty note before the manual: Capella revises courses and scoring guides over time, so always write to the exact scoring guide attached to your assessment in the courseroom. The course identity above is verified on capella.edu; the method and structure below are our tutors' approach to it, not Capella's official rubric text.
How Assessment 2 is scored
Grading in FlexPath runs criterion by criterion, four levels each, no points and no curve. Read the levels as the definition of the deliverable:
| Level | What it means on a leadership development plan |
|---|---|
| Distinguished | Every action carries a date, a resource, and a measure someone other than you could check, and the plan argues its own return the way a budget request would. Each criterion states its own extra requirement; your scoring guide is the authority on what it is. |
| Proficient | A complete plan with sensible actions and timelines, but the measures stay generic and the return goes unargued. |
| Basic | A list of intentions. Improve communication, build confidence, grow as a leader: wishes wearing bullet points, with no dates and nothing checkable. |
| Non-performance | A required layer of the plan never appears, most often the measurement layer. Evaluators drop a criterion for the hole, not for the quality of what surrounds it. |
The plan is also the payoff of the candor you showed in Assessment 1. A weakness you named honestly there becomes an investment thesis here, which is why hedged first assessments produce unbuildable second ones. If your Assessment 1 pulled punches, the fix starts by re-reading it, not by drafting around it.
The method, step by step
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Reread Assessment 1 like a consultant's findings
Your first assessment is this paper's evidence base. Go through it and list every gap it named, with the instrument score and the workplace consequence attached to each. The development plan may not introduce a weakness that Assessment 1 never established; a gap arriving from nowhere reads as invented for the assignment, and evaluators notice.
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Rank the gaps by what they cost the business
Not every gap deserves investment. Put a rough annual price on each one, in delay, turnover, rework, or missed revenue, and let the ranking choose your two or three plan objectives. This is the move that turns a personal-growth exercise into a business case, and it is usually the exact upgrade the top column describes; your scoring guide decides the wording.
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Write one objective per gap and put a date on it
Each surviving gap gets a single objective sentence with a deadline inside it. Undated objectives are the signature of the Basic plan. A date forces the rest of the machinery into existence, because the moment you commit to October, someone can ask what happens in August, and the plan has to answer.
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Attach resources and a budget line to every action
Development costs something: a coach's fee, a course, a mentor's hours, delegated work that will be done worse for a quarter. Name the resource and its price for each action. A plan that costs nothing claims to change nothing, and a criterion asking about resources is answered with specifics, not with "time and effort."
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Define measures someone else could verify
For every objective, state the metric, its current value, and its target value, chosen so your own manager could confirm it without asking you how you feel. Retention on your team, decision turnaround in a ticketing system, a retest percentile on the same instrument. Self-reported confidence is not a measure; it is the absence of one.
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Score the draft against the guide, then submit early
Walk the finished plan through the scoring guide criterion by criterion, marking each level honestly before the evaluator does it for you. Rework whatever falls short of the top column. Submit at the start of the week so the evaluation loop, which can run two business days, does not stall your course momentum over a weekend.
A structure that maps to the criteria
Targets below are planning figures from our drafts of typical development plans; the scoring guide in your courseroom outranks every number in this table.
| Section | What it must do | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | State what the plan invests in, why now, and the one-sentence version of the expected return. | ~150 words |
| Gap summary | The findings carried forward from Assessment 1: each gap with its instrument evidence and its business cost. | ~250 words |
| Objectives and actions | One dated objective per gap, each with the concrete actions that pursue it. | ~400 words |
| Resources and timeline | What each action costs, who or what it requires, and the sequence across the year. | ~250 words |
| Measures and accountability | Current value, target value, and verification method for every objective, plus who checks. | ~200 words |
| References | Development literature, the instrument, and the model source, all current and both ways in APA. | as needed |
Annotated sample excerpt
A short original passage from our writers, included to show the moves rather than to be borrowed. Read it against the notes underneath.
Objective one addresses the delegation gap my first assessment surfaced, a 22-point spread between my directive and empowering scores that became operational the week Brightline Systems moved my 38-person implementation group to a hybrid schedule and my approve-everything habit turned into a queue.1 The action is specific: by October 1, all client-status decisions under $25,000 route to my four team leads under a written escalation threshold, supported by six sessions with an external coach at $1,800 total.2 The measure is one my own manager can verify without interviewing me, average decision turnaround in our ticketing system, currently 3.4 days, target 1.5 by year end.3
- 1The objective opens by citing its own evidence, the instrument spread and the moment it turned into an operational problem. Plans that trace back to findings score; plans that free-float do not.
- 2Date, dollar threshold, named mechanism, and a costed resource in one sentence. This is what a criterion about actions and resources wants handed to it.
- 3A metric with a current value, a target, and an external verifier. The evaluator can picture checking it, which is the entire point of a measure.
The full premium sample for your exact assessment, written fresh to your scoring guide and issue, is free to request. Study it, revise it into your own voice, and submit work you understand.
The five mistakes that cost Distinguished
- Wishes formatted as objectives. "Become a better communicator" has no date, no cost, and no test, so it gives the criteria nothing to award.
- Orphan gaps. A weakness that never appeared in Assessment 1 undermines both papers at once, because it proves one of them wrong.
- The free plan. Development with no budget line and no resource named tells the evaluator nothing real was committed.
- Self-graded measures. If only you can say whether the objective was met, the accountability criterion is still open.
- Reciting SMART instead of running it. Defining the acronym is coursework summary; a plan whose every objective already is specific, measurable, and dated never needs to mention it.
Pre-submission checklist
- Every criterion in the scoring guide has a section answering it by name
- Each gap in the plan traces to evidence in Assessment 1
- Every objective carries a calendar date inside the sentence
- Each action names its resource and its cost
- Every measure has a current value, a target, and an external verifier
- Full draft self-scored at the top level, criterion by criterion, before upload
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