UMUC Haircuts Stage 4 Instructions

Before you begin this assignment, be sure you have
1. Read the "UMUC Haircuts Case Study Stage 1, 2 & 3 " & review "Walmart Example."
2. Review Instructor feedback from previous submissions.

Purpose of this Assignment

This assignment gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to communicate effectively with an important stakeholder. This assignment specifically addresses the following course outcomes to enable you to:
analyze business strategy to recognize how technology solutions enable strategic outcomes
· identify and plan IT solutions that meet business objectives

Overview of Executive Briefing for UMUC Haircuts

For your Stage Case Study1, you identified a strategy for competitive advantage and a business process that you would improve through the application of technology to a business process for UMUC Haircuts.

For your Stage 2, you identified a proposed IT solution to improve that business process. Your research included planning for IT and business resources, identifying solution components, and identifying ways the new technology would improve the business process and support the strategy for competitive analysis. Modeling the AS IS and TO BE Processes helped identify the steps in the business process you are improving for UMUC Haircuts.

In Stage 3, you evaluated IT considerations as to their role and importance to the proposed IT solution to be implemented to improve the business process for UMUC Haircuts.

In Stage 4, you will prepare and present an Executive Briefing of your findings. For your executive briefing select the major components from each stage of the project to present to UMUC Haircuts. Present this briefing to Myra Morningstar, the owner of UMUC Haircuts to explain and provide the justification for her to implement your technology solution. For purposes of this exercise you do not need to focus on the cost of the proposed solution, but rather focus on convincing her that it will improve the operation of UMUC - specifically the business process you selected for improvement.

Resources:

Executive Briefing for UMUC Haircuts: Presentation. The table below explains how to incorporate information from the earlier stages into this Stage 4 Presentation.

Category

Details: At least ten (10) slides - a slide for each bullet below- that bullet points the following:

Title Slide

· Introduce the project
Stage One

· Identify the competitive advantage you selected for UMUC Haircuts
· Identify business process you selected to improve

Stage Two

· Identify the Solution you chose to improve the process and help UMUC Haircuts with their strategy for competitive advantage.
· Address how the IT solution you proposed will improve the process.
· Give an overview of IT solution components, IT skills, and business resources needed to implement the solution. Explain how these all would work together to improve the process.
· Explain business benefits of the solution and how the strategy for competitive advantage will be met.

Stage Three

· Review the IT considerations you determined to be most important. This would include any consideration that has a High importance ranking. Select no more than five of the IT considerations that are the MOST important.
Other
· Identify major benefits and risks associated with your proposed solution

· Summary and Conclusion

Executive Briefing:

· A Title on every slide
· Consistent graphics throughout the presentation
· Brief bullet points only on slides
· Notes: The bullet points in your presentation will be supported by relevant details in the Notes section of the slides, which contain the actual words you would say to present each slide.

PowerPoint Resources

How to Excel at Briefing Senior Executives:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bOsAyAFilmAJ:http://www.melissalewis.com/articles/A-Briefings.pdf%2Bhttp://www.melissalewis.com/articles/A-Briefings.pdf&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&hl=en&ct=clnk

The Rule of Seven (scroll down to article): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:d1Ww-9teU0wJ:http://ezinearticles.com/%3FThe-Rule-of-Seven%26id%3D364277%2B%EF%82%A7+http://ezinearticles.com/%3FThe-Rule-of-Seven%26id%3D364277&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&hl=en&ct=clnk

Assignment: UMUC Haircuts Stage 4: Create an document that includes:

I. An executive briefing in PowerPoint covering the following topics: (each bullet below should be represented by at least one slide)
· Introduce the project
· Identify a business competitive advantage for UMUC Haircuts
· Identify a business process to improve
· Identify the IT Solution you chose to improve the process
· State how the solution and components will improve the business process.
· Give an overview of IT solution components, IT Skills/Services & Business/Management Resources
· Explain business benefits of the solution and how the strategy for competitive advantage will be met.
· Review the IT considerations you determined to be most important in the Table in Stage 3. This would include any consideration that you ranked with high importance. Select up to 5 that you consider to be the MOST important. Briefly explain the impact on UMUC Haircuts - what the considerations are/mean, what they mean to the UMUC Haircuts business, and what needs to be done about them.
· Identify major benefits and risks associated with your proposed solution.
· Summary and Conclusion: Brief review and final sales pitch!

II. Notes: Details Section of Presentation
· The bullet points in your presentation will be supported by relevant details in the Notes section of the slides, which contain the actual words you would say to present each slide. This is an important part of your presentation. If you were writing a paper, the content would be in the notes and the PowerPoint slides would be the outline.
· Presentations with limited or no "Notes" will receive much lower grades, because the bullets should not tell the whole story.

III. Resources
· While use of external resources (resources other than those provided in the classroom) is not required, your presentation may be strengthened by incorporating research. Remember to correctly cite and reference any sources.
· Any direct quotes should be indicated within the slide text with appropriate quotation marks and an in-text citation (however direct quotes should be short and used sparingly, if at all).

· Complete references for all sources should be included in the corresponding Notes section. Paraphrased material can just be referenced within the Notes section of the slides without an in-text citation on the slide. This deviates from APA style but keeps the slides more readable.

Note: Do not include your resources on a separate slide in the presentation. They need to be included in the notes section of the slide to which they pertain.

Additional Instructions:

Formatting: Stage 4 - Executive Briefing

· Content on your Slides should be double-spaced
· Use bullet points - 6-8 words per line; 4-7 lines per slide; Font - preferably Arial, Verdana or Calibri (sans serif) size 18;
· Your presentation format should be professional and use a business or technology theme to make it interesting in appearance to keep your audience's attention.
· Use graphics sparingly but to emphasize key points and add interest. Stay with the same theme of graphics throughout your presentation. For example use all clip art, all photograph, etc.
· Proofread and Spellcheck (including what you write in the Notes section)!
· Use the Grading Rubric to be sure you have covered everything.
· Submit your presentation as a Microsoft PowerPoint document (or a presentation format that can be read using PowerPoint) with your last name first in the filename: Lastname_firstname_Stage _4