Your midweek assignment in this course will be a continuous project. You will be assuming the role of a consultant. Each week, you will engage in a different aspect of an organizational development activity. The focus of the project will be the professional development needs of the members of the organization. In other words, you will examine how well your organization develops its members towards building a sustainable and competitive organization. You will use the same organization for each week’s assignment.
Company Name: Amazon
A key part of consulting activities is clarification of expectations with the client. Those expectations are then formalized into a contract. For the purposes of this skills-building exercise (each week during the course), we will assume that the client has asked to receive a series of memos as progress and planning updates for the project. We will also assume that the client has asked you to focus on individual, team, and leadership development in the organization. Each week during the course, you will be preparing a one or two page memo.
As needed for the organization you select for the project and your weekly memos, you may either use the real leader (e.g., CEO) or a hypothetical top leader as your client.
Week 1: Scouting Memo
Week 2: Diagnosis Memo
Week 3: Individual Interventions Memo
Week 4: Team Interventions Memo
Week 5: Leadership Development and Succession Interventions Memo Week 5: Leadership Development and Succession Interventions Memo
Week 1 Assignment:
In an organizational diagnosis and development project, a consultant usually begins with a scouting stage. In the scouting stage, the consultant gets to know the client and the expectations. Additionally, the consultant will often observe organizational activities, conduct some interviews, and read available organizational documents to get a feel for processes, attitudes, and potential areas for attention. The scouting stage helps the consultant develop some initial ideas about areas for improvement. Then, the consultant can design data collection (which you will do in next week’s work) to confirm those ideas or identify other concerns.
Planning and Execution:
In this week’s work, you will do an opening assessment (i.e., scouting) of your organization. Research answers to the following issues (bullet point questions below). You may use your own observations, interviews with other organizational members, internet research, and research in organizational documents as part of your review. Due to time constraints for the project, you may also include hypothetical data as needed to fill in some gaps. However, you should do your best to collect as much real data as possible. The following themes should guide the planning and execution of your scouting work.
What is the organization? What does it do/what is its purpose?
How well does your organization develop its members? Does it appear to operate from a comprehensive PDP?
What evidence or symptoms do you see that support your conclusion (about whether your organization develops its members)?
What are some of the possible reasons why your organization does or does not develop its members well?
Who would need to get involved to improve your organization’s development philosophy and practices?
What benefits might individuals in the organization experience if a more robust developmental philosophy and practices were in place?
What benefits might the organization experience if a more robust development philosophy and practices were in place?
Where are the most important opportunities for organizational development (remember, the focus of the project is the professional development needs of members)?
Deliverable:
Prepare a one to two page (500 to 1000 words, single spaced) scouting memo that synthesizes the issues and the most important opportunities for organizational development
Review the memo tips guide attached as reference guide.
You do not need to provide a title page
Cite any resources using APA even though the rest of the paper is in memo format rather than APA
Due by 9/27/24 at 12pm CST
Requirements
1. Make certain to include in text citations from your course text in addition to your outside leadership resources within your main post. This adds credibility to your argument. [Textbook]: Zenger, J. H., & Stinnett, K. (2010). The extraordinary coach: How the best Leaders help others grow (1st ed.). McGraw Hill. ISBN: 9780071703406
2. No plagiarism will be tolerated. Must be in 7th Edition APA format with cited sources within the last 5 years.
3. No AI support, score must be 0% and less than < 10% score on Turnitin
Organizational Scouting
Your midweek assignment in this course will be a continuous project. You will be assuming the role of a consultant. Each week, you will engage in a different aspect of an organizational development activity. The focus of the project will be the professional development needs of the members of the organization. In other words, you will examine how well your organization develops its members towards building a sustainable and competitive organization. You will use the same organization for each week’s assignment.
Company Name: Amazon
A key part of consulting activities is clarification of expectations with the client. Those expectations are then formalized into a contract. For the purposes of this skills-building exercise (each week during the course), we will assume that the client has asked to receive a series of memos as progress and planning updates for the project. We will also assume that the client has asked you to focus on individual, team, and leadership development in the organization. Each week during the course, you will be preparing a one or two page memo.
As needed for the organization you select for the project and your weekly memos, you may either use the real leader (e.g., CEO) or a hypothetical top leader as your client.
· Week 1: Scouting Memo
· Week 2: Diagnosis Memo
· Week 3: Individual Interventions Memo
· Week 4: Team Interventions Memo
· Week 5: Leadership Development and Succession Interventions Memo Week 5: Leadership Development and Succession Interventions Memo
Week 1 Assignment:
In an organizational diagnosis and development project, a consultant usually begins with a scouting stage. In the scouting stage, the consultant gets to know the client and the expectations. Additionally, the consultant will often observe organizational activities, conduct some interviews, and read available organizational documents to get a feel for processes, attitudes, and potential areas for attention. The scouting stage helps the consultant develop some initial ideas about areas for improvement. Then, the consultant can design data collection (which you will do in next week’s work) to confirm those ideas or identify other concerns.
Planning and Execution:
In this week’s work, you will do an opening assessment (i.e., scouting) of your organization. Research answers to the following issues (bullet point questions below). You may use your own observations, interviews with other organizational members, internet research, and research in organizational documents as part of your review. Due to time constraints for the project, you may also include hypothetical data as needed to fill in some gaps. However, you should do your best to collect as much real data as possible. The following themes should guide the planning and execution of your scouting work.
· What is the organization? What does it do/what is its purpose?
· How well does your organization develop its members? Does it appear to operate from a comprehensive PDP?
· What evidence or symptoms do you see that support your conclusion (about whether your organization develops its members)?
· What are some of the possible reasons why your organization does or does not develop its members well?
· Who would need to get involved to improve your organization’s development philosophy and practices?
· What benefits might individuals in the organization experience if a more robust developmental philosophy and practices were in place?
· What benefits might the organization experience if a more robust development philosophy and practices were in place?
· Where are the most important opportunities for organizational development (remember, the focus of the project is the professional development needs of members)?
Deliverable:
Prepare a one to two page (500 to 1000 words, single spaced) scouting memo that synthesizes the issues and the most important opportunities for organizational development
· Review the memo tips guide attached as reference guide.
· You do not need to provide a title page
· Cite any resources using APA even though the rest of the paper is in memo format rather than APA
Due by 9/27/24 at 12pm CST
Requirements
1. Make certain to include in text citations from your course text in addition to your outside leadership resources within your main post. This adds credibility to your argument. [Textbook]: Zenger, J. H., & Stinnett, K. (2010). The extraordinary coach: How the best Leaders help others grow (1st ed.) . McGraw Hill. ISBN: 9780071703406
2. No plagiarism will be tolerated. Must be in 7th Edition APA format with cited sources within the last 5 years.
3. No AI support, score must be 0% and less than < 10% score on Turnitin
,
Tips for Memo Writing
Purpose: The word memo is short for the term “memorandum,” which means something that should be
remembered. Memos are brief documents that summarize information. Often memos highlight key
problems or key steps to solve a problem. Memos might also report new information about a policy,
change, or requirement. Accordingly, memos are targeted to a specific audience who need to know the
summarized information.
General Guidelines: Memos are usually no more than one or two pages long, and are often shorter. They should be single-
spaced and left justified. New paragraphs are signaled by skipping a line between paragraphs rather
than indenting the first line of the paragraph. Effective memos often use headings to clarify information.
Although a memo can be divided into structural sections (e.g., summary, context, etc. as per the next
portion of this guidelines sheet), it can be helpful to use a content heading to assist the reader. For
example, rather than stating summary, you might use “New Grading Deadline” or another short term
that describes the change or problem. Also, use of lists and bullet points rather than paragraphs can
make memos clearer and simpler for readers.
Sections: Memos are organized strategically, with each section fulfilling an important role. To begin, memos have
a header section. A header section usually looks like:
To:
From:
Date:
Subject: (sometimes abbreviated as Re: for regarding).
The header section provides a “quick glimpse” of participants and purpose. Who is the memo for? Who
sent it? What it is about? The header should use exact date and exact name/title (rather than nick
names).
Next, a memo contains a summary segment. Some memos will only contain the summary segment. For
longer memos, the summary segment provides the introduction. Regardless of whether the summary
constitutes the entire memo or just the introduction, it will provide a brief statement of the purpose of
the memo, the context, and any problem, solution, change, or action step. Provide just enough
information to attract audience attention, answer their questions, and persuade them to take needed
actions. For a longer memo, the summary or opening segment should be about ¼ of the memo.
Longer memos build on the summary segment and can include specific sections addressing context,
problem or change, action steps, and supporting evidence. In a longer memo, these sections generally
constitute about ½ of memo—with header being 1/8, summary or opening being ¼, and closing section
being 1/8.
Longer memos also include a closing section that reiterates needed action steps, clarifies benefits for
completing action steps, and indicates how the author (or organization or other agent) will support
those action steps. For a shorter memo that only has the summary section, the summary section will
include some elements of the closing section too (e.g., benefits, support).
Finally, a memo will include attachments as needed. Because a memo represents summarized
information, extensive details are provided in the form of other documents or sources when required.
These might include graphs, tables, charts, lists, etc. If a memo includes attachments, there should be a
line at the end of the memo that indicates attachments and the title of those attachments. For example,
Attachments: Communication Survey Results, May 2015.
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