fixing paper

Please submit it on our Blackboard site under the Reflection Paper assignment under the CONTENT tab.

IMPORTANT: Editing for grammar, proper paragraphing, spelling and usage are expected.

This is a reflection paper so using the first person is acceptable.

Part 1

Personal/Professional Development Paper

The purpose of this section of the paper is to articulate a strategic development plan for your personal/professional life. Consider both sides for they are both closely related and linked. This will help you to demonstrate your understanding of the basic strategic principles.

Task: Carry out a strategic assessment of YOURSELF. Go through your SSV Manual and Text and perform a directional analysis, an internal/external analysis, and create a plan for closing the GAPS between the resources and capabilities required and the ones you already possess.

We understand that your plan may need to be changed in certain areas and will not follow the manual exactly how it is laid out. You are encouraged to rework the assessment according to what suits you best.

Direction: Consider the following questions: What is your mission? What is your vision? What are your values? Who do you want to be providing value for in the future? What sort of meaning do you want your life’s work to have? Who do you want to benefit? What sorts of conditions would you like to be working in? What sorts of people would you like to be working with? What sorts of problems would you like to be working on? What sorts of personal needs should be met by this professional work? These are some potential questions to get your mind in the right frame. Notice, we are not asking you what specific job you want, rather, we are asking about the characteristics of your professional contribution. Be sure to give serious thought to these and any other questions you deem relevant and communicate your direction to us in an effective manner.

External environment: What factors outside of you (outside your body) impact your ability to move toward your direction? Money? Family? Connections? Geography? Economy? Etc. These can both be facilitators and obstacles. Be sure to identify these and describe them in a way that clearly shows how they impact your ability to move toward your direction. What do these need to look like? What do they currently look like? Be sure to fully articulate the answers to these last two questions!

Internal environment: What factors inside you (inside your body) impact your ability to move toward your direction? Personality? Knowledge? Skills? Fear? Again, these can be both facilitators and obstacles. Be sure to identify these and describe them in a way that clearly shows how they impact your ability to move toward your direction. What do these factors need to look like? What do they currently look like? Be sure to fully articulate the answers to these last two questions!

The Plan: Now you have done some analysis, it is time to create a plan. For both the external and internal analyses, you identified what the factors need to look like and what they look like now. The plan will focus upon how to close the gap. How might you overcome the external obstacles? How might you leverage the external facilitators? How might you overcome your internal obstacles/weaknesses? How might you leverage your internal facilitators/strengths?

The plan should demonstrate that you have given this serious thought and that you have made some decisions regarding what you will do and by when. It must be specific enough to be useful. If you can articulate it, you can do it.

Formatting: The paper should flow in the same order as presented above ‘direction, internal, external, plan’. Please include a cover page with your name, your project’s name, and functional affiliations, the date and semester Spring 2014 and any other information you deem relevant. Use 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins and it should be double spaced. The required length is to be at least 4 pages.

Part 2

Strategic Training and Development

Reflection Paper

This paper is the final stage of your strategic training and development in this capstone course. The objective of this part is to help you reflect upon what you have learned this semester and to clearly show us that you are taking away important ‘capstone’ learning.

What have you learned? This capstone experience is designed to help you bring all the learning from your time in the College of Business and ISU to bear on a comprehensive project and to have a rich experience dealing with a large team of people working toward completion of a major project. Please discuss and share what you have learned in the following areas:

1. How does what you have learned in your prior business and non-business classes relate to the successful running of an organization such as SSV-SyBA (consulting and café)? (For this question, focus mostly on the tasks related to running a successful organization, rather than the ‘human side’ which is question 2.)

Please reflect back upon your time at ISU and the SCoB and make specific connections to learning this semester (strategy, café operations and functional work) and your past learning in other classes.

2. What are the key lessons you have learned about working with people to accomplish a large task?

What are the things you would do differently in order to be even more successful? What would you do the same?

3. We offer SyBA consulting services free of charge to help strengthen organizations in our community (the Scott College of Business, government agencies, social service agencies and businesses).

How do you think this class has affected your desire to help make your future community a better place? Try to be as specific as possible…details make it more interesting and convey your messages more clearly.

How have the class and client’s experiences prepared you to give back to society in the future through service and business activities? Can you think of some specific way (or ways) you would like to serve your community in the future?

Formatting: Same as Part 1. Include this section in the same document. Title the section Reflection Paper – YOUR NAME. The length will depend upon individual contribution and depth of reflection thus it is hard to say how long it should be…however we recommend between 2-3 pages. Please be sure to be as specific and clear as possible!

Part 3

Professional Performance Portfolio

This portfolio is to be used to communicate to me what you accomplished this semester in your café experiences and in your consulting experiences.

Do not assume that we know what you have done! Show us the evidence of your contribution. Communicate well.

The objective of this part is to give you the opportunity to clearly articulate your contribution to creating and delivering value to the SSV stakeholders.

Project and Functional team value you have contributed. Reflect back on this semester. We have done a great deal of diverse work. This is your chance to solidly make your case that you have contributed value to our organization’s stakeholders through the project. Please clearly articulate the value you directly helped create and/or deliver. Be specific about what you did and how it contributed. (This is not only a learning exercise, but also your best chance to help me understand your contribution as I am determining the final grades).

Additional suggestions:

You may include anything that you created as appendices, attachments or integrated into the write up.

I will read over your material and your list of contributions and may discuss it with key SSV people to verify or gain additional information as needed. Do not exaggerate your contribution and do not be modest about what you have actually done. GIVE OBJECTIVE FACTS.

Formatting: Same as Part 1. Just include this in the same document but labeled with the title Professional Performance Portfolio for ___(insert your name here)________ at the top of the first page of this section. The length will depend upon individual contribution and depth of reflection thus it is hard to say how long it should be…however we recommend it be between 2-3 pages.