Individual Assignment
Overview
For the individual assignment, you will be working on your own to craft two unique memos that summarize your group’s full report to different stakeholders. The two stakeholders should be on somewhat opposing sides in their policy preferences for the issue your group has researched. Your memo should present a summary of the research, data analysis, and recommendation you made to your client, but the messaging, framing, and points of emphasis should be catered to the specific stakeholder audience of the memo. Each memo should be 1-2 pages total and clearly addressed to each stakeholder. Since your report will have a section that summarizes and analyses at least 5 major stakeholders, you will have several to choose from for your targeted messaging.
Details
Each memo should have at least 3 sections - a section that introduces and summarizes the research on the issue, a section that summarizes the three policy solutions considered by your report, and a section that makes a recommendation. Both memos should have exactly one table or graph that summarizes something important to your stakeholder about the recommended solution.
Stakeholder Analysis
In RPAD 500 (Foundations of Public Administration), you almost certainly read the Eden and Ackermann (1998) chapter on stakeholder analysis. Here, you will once again be thinking about stakeholders using their framework - consider your two stakeholders regarding their power to raise opposition or support to your efforts and their interest in the outcome of the final recommendation. Your tailored messaging should be clearly aligned with the assessment of the stakeholders in your group’s report.
While you are not actually working with the clients chosen by your group, try to approach this as if you were and you are engaging important stakeholders on their behalf in messaging the recommended decision. When considering stakeholders’ power and interest, do some research to ground your assessments. In similar budget or policy situations, who tends to be most vocal and powerful according to your research? How do similar groups behave or react in similar situations in other cities or states? What typically gets their support? A good analysis will ground itself in concrete measures and ways to think critically about the world.
Format
- 12-point Times New Roman
- Standard 1” margins
- APA formatting for citations
- Single spaced
- Name in top left corner of first page