1 Assignment Guidelines

Purpose

The purpose of this group project is to provide an opportunity to:

• apply many of the key course concepts to a business case study;
• practice gathering and interpreting research;
• analyze a situation and identify approaches to address the organizational behaviour-related challenges facing an individual and an organization; and,
• collaborate with team members to share workload and benefit from different perspectives in developing a report.

Overview

The project requires that you work collaboratively with your team to develop research-based recommendations and action plans to address the organizational challenges you identify in the case Marilyn’s Excellent Adventure.   Click here to read the Case Study that this assignment is based on. You’ll probably want to print a copy of the case and keep it handy while you work on this assignment.

As a team you will identify challenges, research potential innovative solutions and provide Eva with detailed recommendations and action plans relating to three different challenges she is facing. The deliverables produced for this assignment include:

1. Project charter/plan and selection of three challenges your team will focus on (e.g. leadership, motivation, change management, etc.) For each challenge area of the project your group will identify what questions (e.g. research) you need answered in order to produce the recommendations and then assign those questions to individual team members.
2. Research Summaries for information/articles relating to  the three challenge areas
3. Team Report including recommendations and action plans for Challenges 1,2 and 3

This project has been designed in such a way as to discourage a “divide and conquer approach” and encourage a collaborative team effort. Subsequently team process and collaboration forms part of your grade for this assignment. 50% of your grade is based on your participation and 50% is based on the “product” produced by your team. My experience from running this assignment in other classes is that the team with the best group process produces the best deliverable. To read more about the “Lessons Learned” from previous classes Click Here.

Project Communication

In order to facilitate the grading of your participation please ensure that all project-related communication occurs on the Group Project Discussion Forum or the Big Blue Button virtual meeting room where meeting notes can be captured. Summary minutes should be posted for all online/in-person meetings.  I need to know who was there, the topics discussed and the actions that arise from each meeting.  You will be introduced to the Big Blue Button rooms when we meet for the first mid-term. If your team decides to use WhatsApp or another texting app please post the transcripts from those discussions in the group discussion forum.  However your group is communicating I need to be able to “see” it to assess your individual contributions.

I am available to meet with teams throughout the project. Please don’t hesitate to connect with me if your team needs guidance.  Consider me a resource to be used for this project!

The Project Phases

This assignment runs over a period of six weeks – and has three distinct stages with assignments due at the end of each phase.

The first two weeks is used to plan the project, chose the three challenge areas your group will focus on and assign research areas for each individual team member.  We do this by communicating online and when we meet for the first mid-term exam.  This is compiled and submitted as Group Project Assignment Phase 1:  Project Plan and Challenge Areas

The next two weeks is the research phase where each group member will individually conduct research and create research summaries for their team to use. Each team member must contribute a minimum of 2 pieces of research to each challenge area – you can do more.  A minimum of 50% of each individual’s research must be from peer reviewed journals (e.g. library research). The research contribution should include the URL address, a summary of the information contained in the resource and how you think it could contribute to the deliverable that your group will produce. This information will be compiled into a group report  and submitted as Group Project Assignment Phase 2:  Research Summaries.  Each individual’s research summaries should be clearly identified as this phase will be graded based on your individual work. Research for the “sake of research” that does not contribute to the next phase of the project is not valuable and will be graded as such. For each challenge area of the project your group should identify what questions (e.g. research) you need answered in order to produce the recommendations and then assign those questions to individual team members.

The final two week phase is the  development of Group Project Assignment Phase 3: Recommendation and Action Planning Report.  This is where the team analyzes the issues and provides recommendations for how Eva should address them.

Phase 1 – Project Planning and Challenge Identification Guidelines

The team will begin this work online as part of their Red Question assignment.  The discussion will be continued at our in-person meeting for the Mid Term Exam.  The group will submit a report including:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Description of the Three Challenges ( 1 paragraph for each)
• Team Charter (questions to be addressed are posted below)
• Project Plan (presented in table form either as an excel document or a word document)
• Research Assignment for Each Team Member

Use 12-point font, double spaced.

Note:  do not discuss the cause of the issues or recommend solutions (this will happen in Phase 3 of the project.

Questions for the Team Charter

• How often should people check the group discussion forum each week?
•  Will you have a project manager for the entire project, assign a leader for each section or will you operate as a self- managed team?
• Who will lead your team meetings?
• Will you have a meeting time each week where people are online, etc.?
• How will you address members who don’t participate or submit material late?
• How will the deliverables be prepared?  Who will draft?
• If you need additional research beyond what you find in the research phase, how will that happen?
• How many edits can you make to each other’s work?
• How will you communicate with each other?  What are the boundaries (e.g. texting hours)?
• Include any other expectations that you think will be helpful to ensure that your team operates effectively.

Questions for the Project Plan

• What is your schedule of communication?
• When are your team meetings? How will you meet?  (online, in -person)
• What are your draft deadlines?  Use the assignment deadlines to help set these?
• Who will take the lead on each section?
• Who will contribute to each section?

Submit your report to the Group Project Discussion Forum and I will provide feedback to your on your approach.

Phase 2: Research Summaries Guidelines

The group will submit one report including all the research summaries.  Team members will be assigned an individual grade for their research summaries.  The report should include a:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Research Summaries -including the APA citation, a summary of the information contained in the resource and how it could contribute to the recommendations that your group will produce.

Use 12-point font, double spaced.

Checklist:

Please ensure your Research Summaries Report meets the criteria identified below:

• each team member has provided 2 research summaries for each challenge area for a minimum of 6 per team member (you can do more)
• 50% of each team member’s research is from a peer reviewed journal
• the author of each research summaries is clearly identified

Submit your report to the Group Project Discussion Forum.

Phase 3:  Recommendations and Action Planning Report

The report your team prepares should include the following:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Main Body (see the report outline below)
• Credits –  provide a page that describes the individual contributions of each member to the report (ie. research, editing, formatting, writing, and for which section(s))
• References – cite all reference materials used in your report, including meetings or interviews with members of the organization in your report. (you may use any of the conventional citation methods you choose)
• Appendices (optional) – If you need to include lengthy reference material in your report (data tables, statistics, interview transcripts, etc.) you may add them at the end as an Appendix.

Use 12-point font, double spaced.

Report Outline Details

Use the following outline for the main body of your report:

• Introduction – provide an introduction to the situation and what the report is about. The introduction should tell me what I’m about to read and intrigue me
• Challenge 1
  • Describe the challenge and explain why you chose it;
  • Analyze the challenge area by using OB theories and concepts to explain the cause of the challenge area.  This section must demonstrate your ability to apply OB theories and ideas to the situation in the case.
  • Describe two recommendations that Marilyn could use to address this challenge area.   Your description should describe what to do and why this makes sense.
  • Identify an  action plan for both recommendations that identifies how Marilyn would do this.  Provide the key steps in a logical order, who would be responsible for each step and how long it would take. 
• Repeat for Challenge 2 and Challenge 3
• Conclusion – summarize the reasons for your recommendations; describe what may happen if no changes are made and what you believe the result will be if Marilyn adopts your recommendations and action plans.

Things to consider: 

• Good recommendations action plans tell me what to do, why to do it and how to do it
•  Use some of the theories and concepts covered in the course AND your research from Phase 2.  These should be used to support your ideas. 
• You may decide to do additional external research in this phase.  If so, you do not need to provide a summary of the research articles,  just reference  the articles where you use them to support your analysis in your report.
• Make any assumptions necessary to develop  comprehensive recommendations.

This report will be submitted to the Group Assignment Dropbox on the Moodle site