MNGT-C4001 - Management Communication, Lecture, 11.1.2023-15.2.2023

Project instructions

Objective:

1. To analyze an authentic internal or external communication situation (problem/challenge/crisis)
   In your analysis, you are expected to take a strategic approach towards communication and draw on relevant communication models dealt with during the course: Competing Values Communication Framework (CVCF), Strategic Contingency Model (SCM), Toulmin’s CDW argumentation model, sensitive message patterns, and persuasive patterns.
   
   
2. Provide recommendations to the organiziation in question
   You need to provide management with communication recommendations based on your analysis and findings. So, the audience for this presentation and executive summary is NOT classmates, but the top management of the organization in question.
   

Your role: internal or external consultants

Audience: the audience for this presentation and executive summary is NOT classmates, but the top management of the organisation in question.

Your aim is to focus on the communication aspects of the situation.

The project has 2 deliverables:

1. A 15-minute team presentation (50% of the overall grade of the assignment): This consultant presentation should briefly explain the project objectives, background of the communication situation, present your communication recommendations, provide analytical evidence to support them, and draw pertinent conclusions.
   
   
2. A 1-2-page executive summary (50%): This should give a clear overview of your analysis and recommendations. It will include project objectives, situational analysis, communication challenges, analysis of these challenges, key findings, and your recommendations. 
   

1. Identify an organizational communication situation (e.g. problem / crisis / challenge). It could be an incident within your own organization (work / Aalto)? Choose something local, small, recent and manageable.
   
   
2. Analyze stakeholder communications by using at least one primary source (original data gathered from interview(s), a survey etc.) and two or more secondary sources (e.g. news / articles / press releases / blogs / company statements / company intranet). Both the primary and secondary sources of data can be from outside the case company. So for example, a primary source of data could be a survey with the fellow students about the company's credibility, and the secondary source of data could be a news article and some social media posts)
   
   
3. Comment on what aspects of the communication(s) were/were not successful (your analysis and findings).
   
   
4. Provide recommendations on how the communication(s) could have been improved and if appropriate how your recommendations could be / have been implemented. In your recommendation, remember to draw from the materials in the 'Readings' folder, as well as other sources.
   

Primary data: You could get primary material, for example, by conducting a survey, or by interviewing a business professional, an expert in the field, co-workers, other students, fellow managers or personnel.

Key questions to be addressed

1. What written and spoken messages (secondary data) were involved in the situation overall and why did you choose specific messages for closer analysis? Were some important messages missing? Were there unnecessary, confusing, or harmful messages that might have been avoided?
   
   
2. Why was each message sent (purpose)? What communication objective was each message intended to fulfill? Did each message fulfill its objective?
   
   
3. Who sent and received each message? Did various individuals and groups receive information they needed, or did not need?
   
   
4. What was the timing of each message? Was the timing effective?
   
   
5. What recommendations would you suggest in this situation? How would they have worked? Why would they have worked? How could they have been implemented? What should have been done in the situation? 
   

Communication project proposal

You need to submit a project proposal during Week 2 of the course. This short and concise project proposal should answer the following questions:

1. What communication situation have you chosen? Why?
2. What spoken / written messages were involved overall? 
3. Which messages have you chosen to focus on? Why?
4. What primary sources will you use?
5. What analytical models do you intend to use (CVCF, SCM, BNM, other)? Why?
   

Grading
All members of the group will receive the same grade for both the presentation and executive summary unless the assignment B2 (Reflection paper) indicates significant differences in the individual contribution of group members.

You'll find the evaluation rubric for the executive summary in the Executive Summary submission box.

Evaluation criteria for Executive Summary

The grading criteria for this assignment are:

• Reader focus (20)
• Content selection (40)
• Structure (10)
• Skim value (20)
• Language (10)
  

Please check the evaluation rubric available in the submission box before starting to work on the assignment and again before you submit it. You'll find the grading detail for the presentation in the subsequent submission folder.