UW-Stout Technical Communications “Inspiring Innovation” Team Project: Researched Directions For this project, your team will select a topic and research that topic to create a set of directions written for a specific audience. 1. Select a topic from among the Topic Options below. 2. Select an audience from among the Audience Options listed for your topic. 3. Use the guidelines below to develop a Project Proposal. One team member will post the proposal to the team’s dropbox in Canvas. Due 1/9 20% of proj. grade 4. As a team, develop a list of criteria by which you would expect your work to be evaluated for this project. You may wish to review the Criteria section of the handbook, pages 436-7. Some key questions: what does the team think will be ten of the most important elements of the directions in the Project Report? For each element, how should it be evaluated? What will it look like when a team has done it well? One team member will post the list of 10+ criteria and explanations to the Criteria discussion board in Canvas. Due 1/12 5% of proj. grade 5. Research and reflect on the audience you selected. 6. Research your topic using relevant Stout library databases. The Project Report should be based on research data, not on opinion or anecdotal evidence. The working bibliography and works cited lists need at least two sources per team member – 10+ for a 5-person team and 8+ for a 4-person team. The two lists do not have to be identical. One team member will post the working bibliography to the team’s dropbox in Canvas. Due 1/14 15% of project Grade. 7. Use the guidelines below to develop a Project Report. One team member will post the proposal to the team’s dropbox in Canvas. Due 1/21 60% of proj. grade Topic Options A. Directions on how to develop team cohesion for online project teams. Audience Options for Topic A i. Students at River Heights elementary school ii. Undergraduate students at UW-Stout iii. Employees at Westconsin Bank B. Directions on how to improve retention/persistence and graduation rates using PERTS (see perts.net) Audience Options for Topic B i. UW-Stout undergraduate students ii. CVTC students iii. UW-Madison undergraduate students C. Directions on how to use storytelling and improv techniques to improve conference presentations and senior shows (see https://www.aldacenter.org/) Audience Options for Topic C i. UW-Stout students ii. UW-Stout faculty iii. UW-System state lobbyists 1 UW-Stout Technical Communications “Inspiring Innovation” Project Proposal Guidelines A project proposal is a document in which the team explains what activities will happen when and what documents will be produced so that at the end of the project, the team has a polished deliverable. For the “Directions” project, your team will create a proposal memo, a working bibliography, and a final report. Each trainee will receive the same base-rate compensation (grade), potentially modified by the group evaluation. Good project proposals persuade a client, who is the reader/audience for the document, that the team understands what the client wants and that the team has the skills needed to complete the project. Project proposals also focus and protect a team. Once a client agrees to the proposed work, both the client and the team have a clear understanding of the scope of their commitment. In particular, effective proposals will detail the following: • Group members’ names • The topic and audience selected • Methods: the steps necessary to produce the deliverable • Goals: exactly what the project work will produce • Responsibility: the person or people who are responsible for each step A project proposal should demonstrate an understanding of any constraints (time, money, etc.) the client has placed on the project. Keep in mind that, in different ways, overly- and underlyambitious project proposals call into question a team’s credibility. The Proposal Planning Guide (optional reading; posted in Canvas; from an earlier edition of the training manual), as well as the Writing Guides in the current edition can be useful resources in planning and structuring your project and proposal. In particular, see figures 3.4 (pp. 67-68), 23.2 (pp. 400-2), and 24.2 (pp. 426-7); a complete list of Writer’s Guides is on page 518. Remember to design goals that are S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. • • • Each team will collectively produce one proposal. Proposals need to include a timeline of activities, with a lead person for each deliverable. Proposals should be 750+ words. Due Date: 1/9 2 UW-Stout Technical Communications “Inspiring Innovation” Project Report Guidelines Content The directions must be based on practices or interventions that have been shown in a rigorous research study to be effective (NOT just someone’s bright idea about what people can do). Rigorous research studies usually include a double-blinded, randomized assignment of participants to a control group as well as an intervention group, and a statistically significant sample size. • Intervention group = study participants who are given a standardized treatment that affects their responses, actions, or beliefs about the thing being studied. • Control group = study participants who are given a treatment that seems similar to the intervention but that does not affect the participant’s actions or beliefs about the thing being studied. • Double-blinded = neither the researchers who administer the treatment nor the people receiving the treatment know who is getting the intervention and who is getting the placebo treatment. • Randomized = participants have an equal chance of being assigned to one group or the other. • Statistically significant sample size = enough study participants so that there is a high probability that differences between the responses of participants in the control group versus responses of participants in the intervention group are not just random chance. Use the Proposal Planning Guide (optional reading; posted in Canvas; from an earlier edition of the training manual) and the Writing Guides in the current edition as resources to plan and structure your project. In particular, see figures 3.4 (pp. 67-68), 23.2 (pp. 400-2), and 24.2 (pp. 426-7); a complete list of Writer’s Guides is on page 518. Length The Project Report should be 6-8 pages (~1,500 – 2,000 words; exceptions available upon petition). The required length is a minimum of your own writing. The Works Cited list and quotations do not count toward the minimum. Sources The Project Report should be followed by a list of works cited, with two sources per team member. Each item on the works cited list should be cited in the report. You may use as many additional resources as you wish. For each resource, consider how well it supports your credibility with the audience. Format The Project Report should be formatted to maximize useability for the intended audience. Audience-awareness/reader-centered-ness should be noticeable in the Project Report layout, tone, complexity, depth, organization, and use of graphics. Due date: 1/21 3 Conner Nelson Greyson Hammer Ali Almusallam Roy Nyangaresi Dayton Andersen Project Proposal Our group has decided to work on Topic A, which is directions on how to develop team cohesion for online project teams. For our audience, we have chosen the audience to be undergraduate UW Stout students. We feel that it would be easier to persuade the audience by choosing undergraduate students at UW Stout, since we are them. We want the audience to realize how committed we are and give them a clear understanding to persuade them to like our product. Given the circumstances in today’s world, everything has been moved to online. Everything has been moved to virtual world for quite some time. Students, including us, miss being in face-to-face classes. When given group projects, it was much easier to meet with groups in person while we do all or most of our meetings online these days. With this proposal, we are going to show you how we are going to do this project. We are going to give you a timeline of when this project will be done. Today is January 8th, 2021, our group is working on the proposal. We plan to get the proposal done before or on the due date, which is January 9th, 2021. After that, our group will create a criteria list with explanations and have it done before the due date, which is January 12,2021. Our group will then work on our bibliography. We will do research on our project using creditable UW Stout sites. We will cite our sources correctly and will be sure not to do any plagiarism. We will submit our bibliography by the due date. The due date for the bibliography is January 14th, 2021. The final step is to do the Project Report, which will be done and submitted before or on the due date, which is January 21st, 2021. Our team has multiple goals, we will explain them now. After looking at our directions, we hope that people will know how to be more cohesive with people. We hope that our clients will have a better understanding on how to be better with people and will be able to work with anyone in the future. When working for a certain business, it is important to be able wo work with anyone, no matter how different or how similar they are with you and your interests. After using our directions, we hope that you or anyone will be able to work with anyone. For our project on developing team cohesion for online project teams having a set list of goals to achieve helps the projects reach its maximum potential. When creating team cohesion, communication amongst team members it very important. So, our first goal is to consistently be communicating to assure that we are all on the same page. And, even if we are not on the same page, we have an understanding on where our team members heads are at. Another important goal we have set for our project report is establishing the deadlines for each assignment and assuring the deadlines are met on time. With this project having a turn in deadline, we feel it would be important to communicate through each assignment one or two day before the assignment is due. In group projects in school, it is rare, in my case, to have done the amount of work equally. In past group projects, there never is a consistent amount of equal of work done by everyone. To help prevent this we are going to continue to achieve one of our goal, which is communication. We are going to try our best to communicate out the responsibilities of each part of this project to assure it is completed correctly and equally. To guarantee that the goal of communication is reached we have been using the Team Cedar discussion board, an email thread, and a snapchat group chat. One of our ideas is to make a table that list the assignment along with the due date. On this table members of group cedar can assign themselves a task. There are assigned task can be under the primary column along with another column where other members can type their name indicating that they helped on the deliverable. We liked this method best because it allowed each member to take a lead on a deliverable. The table below is the table previously described. Due Date 1/9/21 Deliverable Proposal Primary Conner Nelson 1/12/21 1/14/21 1/21/21 Criteria List Bibliography Project Report Greyson Hammer Ali Almusallam Helper(s) Greyson Hammer Ali Almusallam Conner Nelson Greyson Hammer Ali Almusallam Roy Nyangaresi Dayton Andersen Criteria List • • • • • • • • • • Strong Leadership is established. A leader or leaders have been identified in the group to assure that the roles and functions are clearly met. Without proper leadership in amongst undergraduate students, procrastination is likely. Problem Solving during the decision-making process. When a problem occurs when planning and composing the project report group members cooperate to allow the problem to be solved efficiently. It is important that if a problem does not get solved that the leader/ leaders take charge, and a decision is made. Leaders’ decisions are usually accepted by the group as leaders are experts and fairs. Utilization of Resources The group can use a variety of resource available to them within the group through communication and outside the group through research. The Undergraduate students site the outside sources properly. Properly communicating and evaluating data During team meeting, assignments, and discussions data is shared to all members of the online project team. This assures that all data, research, and information is shared and can be analyzed so that the project is properly completed. Efficiency in time management The online project team is productive through research and application of the research. Little distractions interfere with the working time. Consistent communication between group members The online project team is regularly communicating to assure a steadfast completion of parts of the project through online platform. The leader or leaders need to maintain the communication to allow better understanding throughout the group. Participation It is important that everyone in the group participates and helps with the work. Having more people work with each other instead of a couple will gather more information and better job. Not Procrastinating It is a much better feeling to get things done early rather than waiting until the last minute to get something done. People can get distracted easily and lose track of time. Citing Sources Properly Not citing sources or not citing sources at all could lead to plagiarism, which is not what our group wants in the slightest. We will be sure to cite our sources properly. Seeing if goals were met To make sure that you are achieving your goals you need to set a specific date for each goal and see if those goals were met after some time. It is very important to double check after days if the goals, that were supposed to be achieved, were met or not because you that helps you to see if you work successfully. If not, you can find out why and think about what you can change to work more success and achieve your goals. 
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