DB-FPX8640 is the course where the DBA stops being coursework and starts being your doctoral project. Building on the gap-in-practice work from DB-FPX8610 and the change-leadership themes from DB-FPX8630, you create an individualized project topic within organizational leadership using Capella's capstone template, then write the initial portion of your project proposal. The signature assignment — topic approval — is a hard gate: you don't move forward without it. This guide explains the assessments and where academic support for DB-FPX8640 fits.
Course Overview
Seminar: Leadership Topic Development has you create an individualized project topic within the organizational leadership specialization using the capstone template. You write the initial portion of your project proposal — including your problem of practice, topic background, project justification and theoretical framework, and a preliminary project plan — and identify how you'll disseminate your research, including through presentations within your industry and professional communities of practice. Prerequisites are DB-FPX8630, RSCH-FPX7860, RSCH-FPX7864, and RSCH-FPX7868, so the human-subjects and research-methods groundwork must already be in place.
Key Assessments
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1Problem of Practice and Topic Background
You define your problem of practice — the real organizational leadership issue your project addresses — and provide background establishing why it matters.
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2Project Justification and Theoretical Framework
You justify the project's scholarly and practical significance and identify the theoretical or conceptual framework that will ground your analysis.
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3Preliminary Project Plan
An initial plan outlining your intended approach, data sources, and timeline — not yet the full methodology, but enough to demonstrate feasibility.
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4Topic Approval (Signature Assignment)
The compiled, reviewer-approved topic package. Successful completion of this signature assignment is required to pass the course and proceed to DB-FPX8650.
How We Help With DB-FPX8640
- Narrowing a genuine organizational leadership problem of practice to a scope that's feasible for a DBA-level applied project
- Selecting a theoretical framework that's defensible and directly tied to the problem (not just popular in the literature)
- Writing a preliminary project plan with realistic, specific data sources and a credible timeline
- Preparing the full topic-approval package to meet committee/reviewer expectations on the first pass
- APA 7 formatting and Capella capstone-template compliance throughout
Common Challenges in This Course
The single biggest risk in this course is scope: a problem of practice that's too broad gets sent back for revision, costing you real time given the signature-assignment gate. The theoretical framework selection is the second common stumbling block — students sometimes pick a framework because it's popular rather than because it actually fits the problem; reviewers notice the mismatch quickly. Build in buffer time for at least one round of topic-approval feedback.
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Related Courses
DB-FPX8640 FAQ
You revise and resubmit based on reviewer feedback — it's common not to pass on the first try, so build in time rather than treating it as a single-shot deadline.
Not yet — full IRB approval comes later in DB-FPX9802. This course requires only that you've completed human-subjects research certification (RSCH-FPX7860/7864/7868).
Significant changes become harder (and slower) the further you progress, since later courses build directly on the approved topic — it's worth getting this stage right.
Capella's standardized doctoral project template — a required structure your proposal sections must follow exactly, including section headings and formatting.
DB-FPX8650 (Seminar: Leadership Literature Review), where you build the full literature review supporting the topic approved here.