Learning from management videos: the producers' point of view

Desiring to use videotapes to teach nursing management and failing to find commercially available tapes on needed topics, the authors produced their own tapes on using a decision tree, negotiating a labor contract, leading a quality circle discussion, defending a budget request, conducting an evaluation conference, and leading a brainstorming session. Having identified the underlying principles for each topic, they wrote scripts for 15 minute vignettes dramatizing a nurse manager's use of each technique. They directed nursing and theater students' portrayals of the characters for each vignette. The edited videotapes of managerial interventions proved to be effective models for nurses enrolled in basic management courses. The scriptwriter, director, camera operator, and student actors all acquired an in-depth understanding of the videotaped managerial interventions through their research and prerehearsal conferences.