Final Individual Capstone Project: Live Case Analysis Details and Deliverable Schedule (25% of grade)
For your individual course project, which will span the semester, you are asked to address a strategic issue within an organization. In doing so, you will take up the role of a strategy consultant. The organization you focus on can be a for-profit, non-profit or public organization. Unlike the Ivey cases, this live case assignment will require you to first gather information about your chosen organization in order to determine a current specific issue or opportunity on which to focus. Then, using the information you have gathered, you will analyze the organization’s situation, utilizing relevant strategy frameworks and concepts from class, and provide recommendations to the organization going forward. I would recommend that you choose an organization for which information is readily available via primary (e.g., interviews, focus groups) and/or secondary (e.g., websites, annual reports, business news cites) sources. This project is intentionally designed to be abstract and open-ended in order to build both creative and critical thinking skill sets. While there are a number of different ways to approach this project, the below timeline and deliverables schedule highlights the key components for you to focus on in your analysis and assessment of your chosen organization. Senior level writing is expected for all deliverables.
Key Due Dates and Deliverables
One page summary of proposed organization due on February 21st at 11:59 pm (10% of total project grade). Your one page overview (single spaced) should provide a succinct, but clear overview of your proposed organization (even if your chosen organization is well known) and the suggested current strategic issue you will address based upon your preliminary gathering of information. You should also clearly indicate how you intend to collect data for this project (e.g., what types of sources you intended to use, what specific types of data you plan to collect)
- Final project submission on May 3rd (90% of total project grade): Your final project report (2000-3000 words in length and single spaced) should include:
- An introduction to your organization and the strategic issue you focus on in your analysis
- A thorough internal and external analysis of the chosen organization
- A thorough analysis of identified issues/problems and/or opportunities
- Recommendations on effective solutions/strategies
- You should provide a number of alternative options for the organization to consider including the pros and cons of each choice before arriving at final recommendation(s)
- Other requirements: Your report should be well organized, include headers between different sections, a table of contents and title page and utilize at least 5 primary and/or secondary sources (adhere to APA 6th edition for in text citation and reference list https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/)
What I’ll be looking for in grading your projects:
- A well-thought out plan that is clearly organized and cohesive
- Insightful and thorough analysis
- Clearly and thoughtfully utilizes strategic management concepts and ideas throughout project in order to assess, analyze and provide recommendations for chosen organization
- Depth of insight: Moves past the obvious surface-level problems to higher- level problem analysis
- Supports diagnosis and opinions with strong arguments and well-documented evidence
- Clearly follows presentation and formatting guidelines
- Well-written