Good News Memo + DB

Writing a Good News Memo | EXAM GRADE Note: Here is where you also need to be succinct! Your memo should not be more

than one page, but should include all pertinent details. Your justification should be very thorough and detail oriented so I can ‘see’

your thought process and understand how and why you made the decisions you made.

Pull from ALL course content – communications are a building process. Part I

Scenario: Your team has done a great job working on a complex project for an important client o The scenario title and authority level is up to you. You are the team leader, the

point person responsible for the success or failure of the project o The name and company type is up to you o The project is up to you o The client is up to you

The team involved many employees within different hierarchical levels, from many departments within the company The company has two locations, so electronic communications were often required. The team successfully worked through the 4 stages of team development The final product was delivered on time and was enthusiastically received by the client

Assignme nt

➢ Write a Good News Message to all contributors (not the client) ➢ What should you emphasize? ➢ To whom should it be sent? ➢ Who should be sending it?

o The above are only a few of the considerations o You will find that you have to visualize the project and your communication

(mentioned in the IMU)

Part II

DB QUESTION; Write a well-thought-out, very insightful, discussion post about your experience with this week’s quiz, writing a good news message. This can actually be what you wrote as your reflective elements, but you must be more succinct. Trim it down to not more than 3 paragraphs of not more than 5 lines each (3-5 is appropriate for online content – no more, or you have a block of text). You should focus on what you learned from the experience, what was surprising, the value of the assignment, what you struggled with, what you found enjoyable, etc. Was the content from the IMU helpful? Did you struggle the most with getting started? Do not include links to other resources; this is about what all of YOU learned. Note the DB2 is not due until Tuesday night, and the response not until Wednesday 10/21. You can’t very well discuss your experience if you haven’t completed the assignment yet! The response post is due Wednesday so that you have time to read the posts from your peers

Justificati on details*

*Very Important !

Once you have completed your professional memo, spend as much time creating your justification Your justification could easily be twice as lengthy as your actual memo, and may even take longer. Be sure to separate out your thoughts, use subject headings where appropriate, and otherwise utilize all readability elements. If I have to struggle through reading it, your grade will not be as high. This is a first person narrative, as though you are standing in front of me, explaining. o Justify all of your decisions. That means tell me why you made the decisions you

made: list the decision (or phrase, or element) and tell me why you made the decision. o Write your justification professionally. It can be a mix of first person narrative and

bullets, but not all bullets. It should be as though you are sitting across to me explaining in person (so, mostly narrative).

o Include not only why you made a particular decision, but also the element and chapter you drew that building element from.

o Include details regarding why you made decisions, such as whom you included, whether you included a BCC, deductive approach, etc.

o It is probably a good idea to just down these ideas as you create the memo. Then all you will have to do is to write them up!

This will (should!) take you quite a while! Expect it to! Expect to write many drafts, both for the original message and the justifications. You will lose considerable points if it is too brief, lacks details, or is not properly justified (i.e. I think….is not proper justification. I determined……..based on my experience and the content learned from…….. is the way to go. Too many ‘I thinks’ and casual references, both in this assignment as well as in the discussion post are not sufficient high quality posts or responses. They resemble more of a chat, which is not consistent with the learning paradigm. Please be careful of that, as some of you are losing points for that reason. It could be that as a group we are all becoming more comfortable with each other, which is fine, but don’t lose sight of the intended professionalism of the course requirements. That also includes attention to grammar, writing in blocks of text, and other considerations, such as might be listed in the BWC. *NOTE: I am sure many of you will receive a 100. HOWEVER, for all of you. A high grade doesn’t mean your email is perfect. It means you did as good a job as can be expected at this point, and most importantly, you provided me with many details about how and why you made decisions (justification – very very important)!