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Case study 2 due on Sunday
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How to Write a Report
Analysts must report their work, usually in writing. A skilled writer does their best to impress their readers
favorably with clear, understandable, but concise information that can be “digested” quickly and easily.
Writing in this fashion also helps in preparing oral presentations. Follow the four rules given below for all
reports for this course.
1. Imagine your audience, and write “to” them, not “at” them. Ensure you’re using plain language, and
explain acronyms or terms that may not be well-known.
In this course, address your reports to your instructor and assume they may not have a background or
understanding of the methodology and skill sets you have, and they are your customer that has hired
you as a consultant.
Your customer relies on you for clear explanations and concise details to understand what you’re
doing, what your findings are, and what you recommend as actions to correct the problems.
2. Be thorough and brief. Include all the required sections (discussed below) and incorporate
creative and critical thinking when assessing the possible causes and potential solutions. Write
a first draft, then edit carefully for redundancy, wordiness, clutter, etc.
3. Organize for readability into an understandable and logical format (provided on the last page).
4. Use the format provided at the end of this guide, and follow the citation and reference instructions.
Sections of the Report
1. Background. Describe in a solid paragraph the situation that is currently being assessed in the problem.
Be specific, and use bullet statements to highlight problem areas from the text. Do not use bullets as
your entire background! Only use them to highlight key points, if needed.
2. Analysis and findings. This section gives the reader/customer information necessary to understand or
appreciate the current state of the process, and set the foundation for the next sections of the report. It
puts things in focus by providing background and perspective. Assess these areas in short, succinct, but
detailed sentences, and express possible reasons for these conditions to exist.
This section answers the following questions:
• What are all of the potential problems mentioned in the text?
• What are the possible causes for the current situation? Again, be creative! Think outside the box and
as an objective analyst. Place yourself into the role as detective and consultant.
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to identify, and possibly quantify/qualify, those
issues?
The use of bullet points is permissible, but DO NOT use bullet points as your entire narrative analysis. Use
them only to highlight key points.
Tips: Avoid using first person language “I,” “me,” etc., – you are the one presenting the information, so
it is not necessary to include such language in the report. Present your objective analysis to the issues
involved, and present them directly to the customer – your instructor!
Your instructor will assume the identity of the case study individuals/owners. This section should cover
all of the problems, potential causes and ways to identify/measure/quantify/qualify the issues. What
concepts from the chapter the study is based on would you use to accomplish these actions?
3. Recommendations. This section answers these questions:
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to propose possible solutions to reduce or eliminate the
problems?
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to turn solutions into long-term, sustainable processes?
• How would you design and monitor the proposed solutions long-term?
• These should be based on the tools/methods that are presented in the chapters from where the case
study is drawn from.
In other words, if the case study is from Chapter 6, you MUST use the tools/methods from the
chapter, AND incorporate some of the other tools from previous chapters (if applicable) to your
analysis and recommendations.
Present your solutions as recommendations! Remember – you’re the consultant and NOT the owner!
Your job is to point out what you’ve observed, what may be possible causes for the conditions, and how
to possibly fix them using the methods from the chapter and from previous chapters. Think “how would I
fix this?” but present your assessment(s) as a recommendation.
Also, provide what you think the outcome would be (how things would change) if the recommendations
were initiated. These can be simple bullets and sentences – nothing fancy.
Finally, what would you recommend to keep the solutions viable for the next year or two? What would
you use to monitor the processes to ensure the solutions were being followed? Would you use data?
Checklists? That sort of thing. Again, be creative!
4. References. Using only the text is boring, but points will not be deducted since that’s the major source
of info. However, it is preferred that you branch out and get at least one other external source to help
you with the solutions and recommendations.
Do not use parenthetical citations within your analysis – that’s an academic style. Reports usually use
footnotes/endnotes as source citations; however, those are not required for these assignments.
Any external sources should be paraphrased/restated in your own words, but the source MUST be
listed in the reference section. This will cover you from plagiarism worries.
Cite the text and any additional resources you may have used to compile your report on the reference
page only.
Do not paste any Excel chart output into your report. You’re submitting the Excel file with your
analysis and that is sufficient.
5.
General guidance. Reports should have:
• A cover page in APA format
• NO RUNNING HEADERS; Page numbers are optional
• Title of the report will be the name of the Case Study
• 1” margins; 12-point font
• A minimum of 1-1/2 to 2 pages of WRITTEN NARRATIVE for EACH PROBLEM; Does not
include cover page or references
Follow these instructions and you should easily meet these requirements.
USE THE REPORT FORMAT BELOW FOR ALL SUBMISSIONS:
Background
Provide brief synopsis of the problem as presented in the text. Background should be: single-spaced, a solid
paragraph (5-6 sentences), bullet statements may be used to highlight problem areas. DO NOT use bullet
statements only for the background! Use them to emphasize key points only.
Analysis and findings
Single-spaced, with proper paragraphs! This is a narrative report, similar to a term paper. Make sure you break
up your analysis into separate sections covering the problem areas identified in the problem/background. Each
section should be a solid paragraph or two that answers the questions in the text.
DO NOT make your analysis a Q&A format. DO NOT restate the text questions. Use the questions as lead-in
sentences to the analysis/findings. Ensure you cover all areas of the problem, analysis and the findings from the
Excel file (if any) in your analysis.
Be creative, but critical. Logical assumptions may be made, but should stay within the scope of the question.
Envision yourself as an inspector and visualize what is going on, and using creative thinking, what would some
of the logical assumptions based on the scenario be? Use this as your basis for evaluation of the problems and
recommendations for improvement.
DO NOT use bullet statements only for this section! Use them to emphasize key points only.
Recommendations
Same as Analysis section, however, this should be a little more detailed as to how you would monitor and
maintain the solution recommendations. Two or three paragraphs for each problem area would be acceptable.
Recommendations should be relevant to the problem area. What tools/methods would you use to establish a
long-term solution to the problem? What would you recommend as monitor tools or data collection/monitoring
of the process? These can be simple, but related to the concepts in the chapter from which the problem/study is
found.
DO NOT use bullet statements only for this section! Use them to emphasize key points only.
References
References should be on a separate page and in APA format. Format can be found online.
It is encouraged to use external sources for your assignment. This is not necessary, but encouraged.
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