Address Complex Challenges

Project Overview.html

Competency

In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:

• Generate recommendations for addressing a complex challenge

Scenario

Training opportunities in the workplace (professional development) have become a sound investment for employers. In addition to reducing recruiting and retention costs, they have been demonstrated to boost productivity and job satisfaction. For employees, they also provide the benefit of enhancing skills and offer additional prospects for positioning employees for new opportunities within the organization outside of regular promotions. For the past seven years, your company has sponsored a professional enrichment program (PEP). Each year, a small group or cohort of six to eight employees is chosen to participate in special professional enrichment activities in both group and individual formats. They are paired with mentors from leaders across the company. Employees each submit a letter and career plan that serve as their “application” to the program.

Update: Congratulations! You were one of the seven employees selected for the program this year. You’ve been paired with a supportive mentor. As a result, you feel much more confident about testing out and developing new ideas that have broader implications outside the workplace. You have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to develop recommendations around a challenge you feel very excited and passionate about addressing. Your mentor has offered to help you advance your recommendations and was very clear during the meeting that developing good recommendations for both academic and professional contexts requires the same thorough and objective examination of the research surrounding the challenge.

Directions

Recommendations Brief with Research (2,000–2,500 words) You and your mentor previously prepared and refined a list of opportunities that interested you in the Selecting Your Complex Challenge document. For this challenge, select the research question that most interests you, ensuring you address all elements in the rubric.

1. Challenge: Describe your complex challenge and factors that contribute to the complexity of this issue:
   • Demographics of the individuals/group affected by challenge
   • Magnitude of the issue in community affected by challenge
   • Commonly held assumptions or obstacles around this issue
   • Social conditions that exist specific to this challenge
   • Cultural or societal issues specific to this challenge
   • Discipline-specific subject or branch of knowledge

1. Research: You and your mentor have discussed the importance of making your case with evidence-based research, as appropriate to the discipline, that informs your recommendations.
   1. Annotated Bibliography: Select seven resources to analyze that are relevant to your challenge. These primary or secondary sources (conferences, dissertations, patents, journal studies, journal articles, technical reports, articles in scholarly journals, government policies, laws, or legislation) should address the challenge you have selected and inform the recommendations you make:
      • Identify the source authors and discuss their place in society
      • Discuss the purpose of the piece and why it was written
      • Explain the value or ideas behind the content in the source
      • Address the credibility of the piece (why or why not)

1. Your Methods: Include research that is appropriate to the methods that would be used by the professionals using the particular lenses you choose to address your research question. This may include qualitative data, quantitative data, or both.
   • Qualitative research that provides context and information on aspects of your challenge and informs your recommendations
     • Case studies that address issues relevant to your challenge
     • Comparisons on issues relevant to your challenge
     • Information on focus groups or interviews that were conducted and tackle questions relevant to your challenge
   • Quantitative research that is grounded in numerical evidence and informs your recommendations. For example, if your challenge is on quality of water, you would want to have quantitative data from impacted communities, such as scientific data that supports your recommendations.
     • Survey data
     • Chi square
     • Correlation
     • Time Series
     • T-Test
     • ANOVA
1. Recommendations:
   1. Solution: Propose a specific course of action or actions that represent a reasonable solution for your complex challenge, supported by at least five of the most appropriate sources in your annotated bibliography
      • Applicable methods
      • Applicable tools or technologies
      • Necessary resources
   2. Interpretation: Discuss the research and how your interpretation supports your recommendations
      • What the research says in regard to the challenge you are addressing and recommendations you make
      • How you see this research as supporting the recommendations you are making
   3. Significance: Discuss the significance and limitations of the research in supporting your recommendations
      • Geographical global/national/local impacts
      • Cultural, technological, scientific, etc., aspects
1. Conclusion: Defend the action or course of action you have recommended over the alternatives based on:
   1. Utility of the type of methods or methodologies in addressing previous challenges of this type
   2. Necessary resources, tools/technologies to implement proposed recommendations
   3. Implications of your proposed recommendations
      • Ethical effects or consequences
      • Any additional concerns around implementing the specific course of action or actions, if applicable

What to Submit

Every project has a deliverable or deliverables, which are the files that must be submitted before your project can be assessed. For this project, you must submit the following:

Recommendations Brief with Research (2,000–2,500 words) Create a research and recommendations brief that explores a complex challenge using evidence-based practices and appropriate methods of a given discipline to inform reasonable recommendations for a course of action or actions.

Supporting Materials

The following resource(s) may help support your work on the project:

Citation Help Need help citing your sources? Use the CfA Citation Guide and Citation Maker.

Website: Opposing Viewpoints in Context Database This database provides sources for information on various social issues that may likely be an aspect of the complex challenge you are researching. Note: Some users are reporting that an error message appears when attempting to access Opposing Viewpoints. If you see an error message, please try using Internet Explorer and clearing your browser's cookies/cache.

Reading: Selecting Your Complex Challenge This document provides a list of required topics and research questions from which to choose for this project.

Shapiro Library Research Guide: Narrowing Down or Broadening Your Topic This Shapiro Library resource provides additional support for helping you narrow down or broaden your topic, including an index of additional topics that are a great “getting started” point for finding, selecting, and evaluating sources for the research portion of your research and recommendations brief.

Website: CultureGrams This database is a helpful resource to help you immerse yourself in some samplings of the culture of the community/communities in which your complex challenge is situated and help you look at your issue with a broader perspective to ensure you are crafting recommendations that are inclusive of that demographic.

Website: Statista: The Statistics Portal This database can help you secure quantitative data specific to your complex challenge.