Consulting skills unit 1 memo

The product of this Assignment will prove that you are able to use professional language, identify conversational speech, effectively handle ethical concerns, format a professional memo, and use advanced features of Microsoft Word.

Assignment 1 Instructions

There are two Assignments this week. The first one will present you to some scenario where ethical violations were made by a couple of employees. The assignment includes practice in proper communication and formatting, with content relating to ethics, which are all important parts of the IT Consultant’s job. The second Assignment will send you to the Internet for researching about Cloud Computing and how the technology and services can help advance organizational goals

Content

Scenario

You are the lead consultant for an IT consulting firm that specializes in software. Pearson Waters, Inc. is a large, national company that offers property and casualty insurance to businesses and individuals. Your consulting team was hired by Pearson Waters to investigate the possibility of specialized productivity software for their employees to use in storing and retrieving customer data and product details, as well as performing various estimates to show to customers. After researching options, the company approved the design of a new software package, which your team has just now completed.

While you are wrapping up the project, you make some shocking discoveries:

• Some of the programming code completed by your team was actually copied from another company’s proprietary software.
• Two images used in the Employee Instruction Booklet were randomly found on the Internet, and no permission was secured for their use.

These are clear ethics violations. To rectify the situation, you were forced to fire the programmer who stole the code, hire another programmer to ethically rewrite that part of the software package, reprimand the employee who stole the images, locate alternative images for which permission was granted, and reprint the Employee Instruction Booklet.

Write a memo to your team about the above situation. Follow all instructions below and make sure you have also completed the unit reading:

• Your wording must be professional: give facts, explain ramifications, and refrain from emotional writing.
• Do not name the guilty employees or even specify their jobs; the idea is to explain the situation, not to write anything that could leave you open to a future lawsuit.
• The length of the body of your memo must be no less than 250 words and no more than 350 words.
• Do notuse sources – this must be written entirely in your own words without reference to any sources or quotes.
• Organize your memo to include separate paragraphsfor each of the following:
  • Briefly explain the issues that were found
  • Explain how the issues were resolved
  • Explain how these issues affect the client
  • Explain how these issues affect your company
• Follow the “deductive” method of writing, with most important information at the beginningof each paragraph.
• Write with full sentences, and do not include any lists.
• Your memo’s format must follow the instructions given below. You will therefore be responsible for the formatting; Assignments submitted on ready-made templates will notbe accepted.

Assignment Requirements

Memo formatting (Required)

A memo is a method of communication used within a company to share important information between coworkers or from administrators to employees, etc. While they can be several pages long, memos can also be rather short.

The formatting of a memo and the organization of its contents are not like college papers. When you do your Assignment for this unit, use these instructions to create a memo starting in a new, clean Word document:

• Initial set-up:
• The heading:
  • Type the word Memo at the top. Press the enter key twice.
• The address block:
  • Click on the ruler at 1″ to set tabs.
  • Type To: and press the tab key. Type the name of the person or group for whom this memo is intended.
  • On the next line, type From: and press the tab key. Type your name.
  • On the next line, type Date: and press the tab key. Type the date.
  • On the next line, type Re: (this means “Regarding”) and press the tab key. Type a short phrase to provide a descriptive of title for your memo.
  • You can make the headings To: From: Date: and Re: bold if you wish, but do not make any other content bold.
  • Press the enter key twice. Type three hyphens ( – ) and press the enter key. A line should now appear across your document. Press the enter key again.
  • You can remove the tab marker on the ruler by clicking and dragging it away.
• The body:
  • Type the paragraphs for your memo.
    • Write in full sentences.
    • Each paragraph should begin with the most important information, followed by details. This is called “deductive” writing.
    • Since the idea is to get to your point rather quickly, most memo paragraphs tend to be short 4–7 lines long.
  • Provide a blank line between paragraphs.
  • Do not write a salutation (“Dear Joe”).
  • Do not sign the memo.
  • Do not indent paragraphs; memos are in “block style.”
  • For one-page memos such as our Assignment this week, do not use any subheadings.
• Final formatting:
  • Return to the word Memo and make it larger and heavier than the rest of the memo. Recommended: Arial Black font size 24.
  • You can double space (or use 1.5 spacing) for the address block if you wish.

Advanced use of Word (Required)

To show an understanding of your communication vehicle (Microsoft Word), you must also include the following in your memo. Both track changes and comments are found on the Review ribbon.

• Write just one phrase in your memo that would be considered “conversational.” If you are unsure what this means, use a search engine to learn more about conversational speech and clichés.
• Then highlight the conversational phrase, click on the track changes button in the Review ribbon, and type a more appropriate wording. Your Assignment will show the “mistake” as well as the correction. An example:

  

• Highlight the date in your heading and then click on “New Comment” in the Review ribbon. In the resulting comment bubble, type the following message (presumably to your administrative assistant): When should we send this? Example:

  

  For more information on APA style formatting, go to APA Style Central under Academic Resources of this course or visit the Writing Center.

  Also review the university policy on plagiarism. If you have any questions, please contact your professor.

For more information on APA style formatting, refer to the resources in the Academic Tools area of this course.

Also review the university policy on plagiarism. If you have any questions, please contact your professor.