Choose a current member of congress and research their background. Prepare a 1-page analysis of their background including their views, policy choices and opinions on current issues.

. What impact does the congressional member’s background (social, economic, educational, ethnic, gender, ideological, etc.) have on your opinion of them? Be specific. Provide concrete examples.

Review the comments provided by your fellow students and answer the following questions:

• Is Congress a representative institution?
• Do the backgrounds of members matter in the legislative process?

Read the following article. Consider its subject matter and do a little extra research on this subject. Answer the discussion questions below.

1. Describe the problem faced by Vlasic. Why were they unable to oppose the sales plan put forth by Wal-Mart? Ultimately, how did responding to Wal-Mart affect their business?
2. Was this an ethical supply chain decision on the part of Wal-Mart? Also, highlight any sustainable ethics that was involved here.
3. What does this case tell you about how much influence a business can have with regard to its suppliers’ decisions and behaviors? What does this say about the conventional notions of the responsibility of firms for the practices of their suppliers (both in terms of individual firms and collectively)? Is it reasonable for consumers (or even regulators) to hold firms accountable?

For additional details, please refer to the Short Paper/Case Study Rubric document in the Assignment Guidelines and Rubrics section of the course.

1) “New Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System”  Please respond to the following:

• A) You are preparing to meet with your end users to discuss possible strategies for converting their old ERP system to a new one. Propose two (2) or three (3) alternative strategies, and explore related examples of situations for which each approach would be preferred and required.
• B) Outline the most common assumptions that developers usually make while documenting the initial use case realization. Determine whether or not there are negative consequences from such assumptions. Provide a rationale for your response.

 

2) “Operating Systems” Please respond to the following:

• A) From the first e-Activity (research the major reasons why some users avoid implementing and using Windows 8. Additionally, research whether or not Microsoft has taken any steps to alleviate any of these concerns), examine two (2) of the most common reasons that some users are avoiding Windows 8. Determine whether Microsoft has taken any steps to address these user concerns and, provide at least one (1) example if they have taken action. If Microsoft has not taken any steps to address these user concerns, recommend at least (1) course of action they could take in order to address the concerns. Justify your response.
• B From the second e-Activity (research three (3) types of user interfaces available today. Be prepared to discuss the various interfaces, the advantages and disadvantages of each to an end user as well as a systems developer, and which one (1) you would prefer), examine the ease of use and the pros and cons of three (3) types of user interfaces available to the user today. Determine the user interface which is the most efficient and user friendly. Provide a rationale for your response.

You will choose two images relevant to “American life” and write a comparative analysis. You may choose any images you would like, but keep in mind that you will use them in your research project. Think about why you are choosing them. What is their significance? More specifically, how are they significant to American culture? How do you interpret the images? You might choose two images that are similar or you could decide to compare two seemingly unlike images. In your essay, be sure to summarize both of them, explain their significance, and provide a detailed analysis of how they relate to each other. You are not required to use any outside sources for this essay.

 

750 words

The objective of the Course Project is to provide you with practice in creating, justifying, and explaining a decision-making proposal. All elements involved in the creation of this proposal, from problem definition through action plan, must be covered. Further, the proposal, as constructed, must meet the tests of any sound business plan, namely that it has specific and measurable goals and objectives, clearly defined activities, stipulated time frames during which those activities will take place, and clearly defined measurable outcomes.

 

The subject matter of your paper should be business-oriented in nature and should avoid decisions that depend largely on intuition to solve.

 

Guidelines

Back to Top

Although the length of the paper is not predetermined, a 10–15 page analysis, including data and appendices, is probably correct. You will also share a summary PowerPoint presentation with fellow students during the Week 6 Discussion.

 

The Final Course Project Proposal with the PowerPoint presentation is due by the end of Week 7 (graded).

 

Required Outline

 

The following outline is required for your Course Project.

 

Executive Summary (less than one page)

This summary is a short, carefully worded description of the problem situation that identifies the recommended solution. A brief justification and explanation of the selection method is to be included, highlighting factors that contributed to selecting the recommended alternative.

Decision Problem Overview

Describe the nature and scope of the decision problem selected, its history together with causes, and the outcomes of any previous attempts to deal with it.

In order to define the problem correctly, the following questions should be addressed.

What is the general nature of the problem?

What event triggered the situation?

Are we imposing any constraints on the situation?

What are the underlying elements of the problem?

Are there dependencies on other decisions?

Briefly introduce the key decision elements—objectives, alternatives, consequences, and uncertainties; details are to be discussed in the following sections.

 

Objectives Statement

Explain each objective in detail. Separate objectives into fundamental and means objectives. A minimum of three objectives is required.

 

Alternatives

Describe each alternative, and explain how the alternatives differ from one another. A minimum of three alternatives is required.

 

Selection

Describe the alternative recommended and why. Explain the tradeoffs you utilized or present a weighted scoring model. Explain why you feel that this report contains sufficient information to make a decision on the problem. Describe any additional information that would be useful to have.

 

Consequences

Explain how you determined the values for each alternative and their corresponding objectives. Show your consequence table, either in this section or as an appendix. Include the bases for forecasts and any techniques or tools used to estimate consequences. Discuss the reliability of your predictions. Indicate what events were considered to be uncertain, explain the probabilities of their occurrence, and what information you used to establish your confidence level in these probabilities. A minimum of two uncertainties is required for the paper.

 

Implementation, Monitoring, and Control

This section contains a detailed implementation plan. There will be an explanation of how the recommended alternative will be implemented, resources dedicated to accomplishing it, and key individuals who will be responsible for the plan’s success. Details should be included on how the plan will be monitored, subsequent evaluation criteria, and how the plan can be amended.

 

Works Cited (at least two external sources should be used)

 

Presentation

Once you have outlined your paper, you should be ready to begin a PowerPoint presentation. As you develop the contents of the sections in your paper, you should extract bullet-point ideas that best express your intended message. If you prefer, use the slides to brainstorm and organize your thoughts before writing the paper. Then refer to your presentation to guide and remind you of the flow of your storyline.