For this paper, you are going to write a proposal for a real stakeholder. You are going to identify a problem and research solutions to it which you will present in a formal report directed to the stakeholder. I am going to grade the proposal, but my name should not appear anywhere in your document. A proposal is a kind of formal report. You have formal report and proposal examples to look at here in Canvas. Please do NOT write your proposal as a memo. I know your book has memos as proposal examples, but those are not formal reports.
Your proposal should be for something connected to your major or to a job you have now. You can pick any topic as long as it’s legal. Examples of past projects are below. You may not use the first two for your own project and you may not use parking as your project.
building a new rodeo arena
getting new equipment for TREAT
Buying new machines to increase production
Rewriting company brochures
For all of those proposals, the solutions included all the necessary information a stakeholder would need to make a decision—so that means including real costs, understanding the problem, explaining the solution thoroughly, etc. You have to choose your topic yourself but make sure it’s something you can research and write up in a short period of time. You will need to include at least 3 visuals in your proposal and they must be captioned properly.
Your proposal must include correct front and back matter. You must address the stakeholder properly. Remember: it is not me!
If you do not have correct front and back matter, including citations, and if you do not include or do not caption your visuals, you will get a 0 for this assignment. The instructions for front and back matter are in your book and the LMs.
Notes for project
1. Talk with your stakeholder from the beginning to get a clear idea of what their needs are.
2. Research the problem thoroughly and propose a solution that your stakeholder could really do.
3. Connect with people who are needed to get the proposal solution done, if necessary. If the stakeholder would need to hire contractors or buy equipment, you need to figure that out for the document.
4. You MUST have a cost section, no matter what. You must work out what the costs are and present them in your proposal. If the cost is 0, which is almost never the case, then you need to explain how it’s 0.
5. Use your resources–if your solution involves the expertise or knowledge of people at Tarleton or in your field, contact them. It’s perfectly fine to send a polite email asking for a meeting or if they can answer a few questions. it’s fine to interview someone. You have to do research for this because you have to give your stakeholder as much information as possible, so you need to find the people or the sources that can give you the correct information.
6. Make sure you understand the entity that is your stakeholder. If you’re doing something related to a government agency, for example, they can’t just go to John Deere and buy a tractor. There are protocols that have to be followed, so make sure you check with your stakeholder to see if there are certain ways things need to be done.
7. YOU are proposing the solution and the solution cannot be just to tell the stakeholder to build a new barn or hire more people or produce better food, etc. You have to give them all the information they need so they can decide if they can implement what you’re proposing. If they don’t have all the information they need, they can’t make that decision.
8. Your visuals need to be accurate, clear and useful. Don’t include any visuals that don’t help explain the written content.
