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Continue weekly meetings (or more often).
Begin the creation of your final report.
Build credibility and create a plan to implement your deliverables.
Develop an effective, top-down executive summary for top management.
Begin development of a professional final presentation.
Now that you are at the end of your project, you need to communicate to your sponsor how to implement your suggestions or explain how you feel that you have positively impacted their company. Your goal is to develop conclusions and recommendations for your sponsor. You will deliver these recommendations in your final report. Here are a few pointers on how you/your team should go about developing your conclusions and recommendations:
As a team/individual, capture the insights you’ve gained and the information you’ve learned from your project.
Discuss/document what the implications of your conclusions on the problem statement will mean for your sponsor or their company.
Define alternative recommendations and discuss the subsequent implications for those recommendations.
Develop a financial analysis of the alternative recommendations and select the value-maximizing recommendation, or if it was an activity-based project document the value created by your work during the project.
Outline a process by which your sponsor or their company can implement recommendations.
Develop the next steps the company should take after your final presentation so that they can move forward and benefit from the given recommendations.
Create a final report that includes your conclusions, recommendations, and/or value created that you will give to your sponsor.
Please watch the following video on how you should go about creating your final report:
Roger McCarty: When it comes time to create reports related to your project, it's important that you follow a process that will lead to success. If we want to see how a big project was planned and implemented, we could look at the creation of the earth.
[A cartoon animation of the creation of the earth appears on the screen.]
When we look at Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 through verse 4, we find the spiritual creation of the earth. This is where the Great Council in heaven laid out the plans for building the earth. The chapters layout each step of creation, including the Sun, Moon, land, plants, animals, fish, and birds. Eventually, man was added to the plan. But the physical creation is outlined in Genesis chapter 2 after verse 4. It looks like they repeat the plan, but the second listing of the creation is the physical creation following the plan outlined from Genesis 1. It's not a bad idea to follow the model of how the Lord implemented his plans and documented them. So let's consider the spiritual and physical creation of your reports.
[Text appears on the screen duplicating what the speaker is saying.]
Before you can write a report, you must first determine what the outcome is that you are going to build towards. For your research reports, that is the recommendation you will make, or in an activity-based project, it is the reporting of the impact of your activities and the value created through your efforts. For a research project, the following steps are an example of the spiritual creation: as a team, capture the insights gained and the information learned, discuss the implication of conclusions on the problem statement, define alternative recommendations and discuss implications, develop financial analysis of the alternative recommendations and select the value maximizing recommendation, outline a process for the company to implement the recommendations, and develop what next steps the company should take after the final presentation to move forward and benefit from the recommendations. This will give you the conclusions and recommendations based on the facts of the project necessary to write the report.
For an activity-based project, you will capture the activities completed during the project, measure the impact of the activities on critical metrics you have been tracking, determine whether the desired goals were reached through the activities, document the goals and metrics reached and the activities that drove the impact. To the extent possible calculate the value created through the impacted activities. If necessary, forecast the future impact and value that will come from the activities, such as forecasts of cost savings, future revenues, or future profits over the coming months or years. This should again give you the information necessary to complete the written report. This will complete the spiritual creation of your report.
The physical creation will be the writing of the report. Now that you have the desired outcomes you wish to document in the report, the following points are often factors that are included in a recommendation oriented project: you start with the original situation, complication, and problem to be considered, the people involved in the process used to complete the project, the processes and methodologies used to gather data for the project, the techniques and tools used to analyze the data, the findings of the project and the insights gained from the analysis, the conclusions drawn from the analysis and the insights of the project, recommendations of actions to be taken and the decisions to be made, and finally, next steps forward for the company sponsor after the project.
And if it is an activity oriented report, they normally include the following elements: the original situation, complication, and problem to be considered, the people involved in the process used to complete the project, the processes and methodologies of the tasks and activities of the project, describe the tools and programs developed during the project, define the impact and outcome of the project on the sponsor company, provide background and users guides for all tools and programs created, and lastly look at the next steps forward for the company sponsor after the project. This will complete the physical creation of the activity-based report.
Now we have one last topic to discuss. When a report is completed, there's a lot of information and activities that were created during the project that is in your head and your files that the company does not necessarily have access to. What if after you deliver the report, you're hit by a bus? All of the background of the project would be lost. So there are several documents you should add to the report.
The executive summary is a one-page document that is intended to provide a high-level review of the recommendations or value impact of the project presented in the way that top executives can derive the information they want in the most succinct and compelling manner. The elements of an executive summary most often include: purpose and background of the project, recommendations or impact of the activities completed in the project, conclusions supporting the recommendation or a list of activities completed during the project, information supporting the conclusions or description of work plan driving the activities completed or tools created.
In the appendix of the report will be all of the data gathered, surveys created, data received, analysis completed, interviews held, secondary reports found, etc. All of the graphs, charts, and tables created, whether they were explicitly used in the report or not. When activities are involved, it includes all of the event planning activities completed that were related to the project, such as social media implemented, content created, business plans developed, etc. Essentially, the appendix includes everything the company would need if they wanted to recreate your research or implement your activities again in the future.
One specialized type of documentation to be included in the appendix is a user's guide. A user's guide explains how to use or update any spreadsheet, database or other tools created during the project. It may document how a Kickstarter campaign was planned and implemented. It may have all of the planning documents and resources utilized for an event held as part of the project. Examples of what might be used in a user's guide could include: the purpose of the tool, database, program etc., what was the problem it was designed to fix or opportunity to capture, a description of the tool, its elements and the desired outcome, a step-by-step process to operate the tool to achieve the desired outcome, warnings, limitations and difficulties in operating the tool or program, troubleshooting options if there are problems with the tool or program, contact information or bibliography of help sources for the tool or program.
Good luck as you spiritually create your report, physically create the documents, and provide any and all special documentation!
You will want to include different things in your final report based on the project you were assigned. There are two types of projects you may have worked on: a Research-based project intended to provide recommendations to the sponsor or a Task & Activity-based project where the project completed the activities and provided valuable actions for the sponsor. Find the type of project you were assigned below to determine what needs to be included in your final report or final deliverable.
Executive Summary
The original situation, complication, and the problem to be considered.
The people involved in the process used to complete the project.
The processes and methodologies used to gather data for the project.
The techniques and tools used to analyze the data.
The findings of the project and the insights gained from the analysis.
The conclusions drawn from the analysis and the insights of the project.
Recommendations of actions to be taken and the decisions to be made.
The next steps for the company sponsor after the project.
Appendices
Executive Summary
The original situation, complication, and problem to be considered.
The people involved in the process used to complete the project.
The processes and methodologies of the tasks and activities of the project.
Describe the tools and programs developed during the project.
Define the impact and outcomes of the project on the sponsor company.
Provide background and user guides for all tools and programs created.
Next steps forward for the company sponsor after the project.
Appendices
The following pages will help you determine specific things you can include in your final report.
In giving your final report, it is best to give more than one conclusion. As a team/individual, it is sometimes hard to come up with multiple conclusions.
The biggest mistake your team/co-workers can make is to identify only one answer or recommendation in your final report. The second biggest mistake is to identify several solutions, and then to argue without facts about which recommendation is best.
Develop alternative options, then forecast each of these options to identify the value of each. Look for ways to combine your alternatives to find the best solution. Never assume that an idea will not work, or that your idea is automatically the best. Once you’ve combined recommendations, present your sponsor with both your hybrid conclusion (a conclusion that contains elements of two or more previously defined conclusions) and some of the ideas you did not select. Your company may find value in discarded conclusions that your team could not see.
Your conclusions should never surprise your sponsor. It is a good practice to always communicate with them in advance so you can modify or explain your conclusions (this is addressed at the end of Chapter 11). Discuss with your team/co-workers about how you can come up with multiple conclusions, or suggestions, for your sponsor.
Watch the following video discussing how you or your team can come up with multiple conclusions, or suggestions, for your sponsor:
[Scene shows three animated characters representing three team members sitting at a table. They identify one answer or solution. Their supervisor appears on the screen. A team member presents the solution, and the supervisor rejects it. The word “Nope” appears on the screen. The team members are shown at the table again arguing about three options. The team member presenting option #1 argues the most strongly as the clock on the wall indicates the passage of time. Finally, the other team members are shown giving up and going to sleep.]
Roger McCarty: The biggest mistake teams make is to identify only one answer or recommendation and present the first idea developed. The second biggest mistake is to identify several potential recommendations and then fight amongst yourselves about which one is best until someone prevails by wearing down everyone else on the team to convince them that they are right.
Of course, this is almost always done without any real evidence beyond the team member’s opinion about which recommendation is best. Sadly, the company only sees the one recommendation and misses all the insight and learning from the other team members’ ideas.
[Text of main discussion points appears on the screen.]
To move from bad outcomes to better outcomes, you must develop alternative options and then forecast the value of implementing each of the ideas. To get to the best ideas, you must look for hybrid solutions that are a blend of multiple ideas.
[A scene of rolling hills with trees, plants, and animals appears, along with blue sky and clouds.]
Let’s look at an example of drilling for oil. When an oil production company considers a field, they do the research to determine where the oil is likely hiding.
[Three circled question marks are stamped on the scene in different locations. The likelihood of each location containing oil is shown in percentages.]
They study all of the formations and find the formations that have the highest likelihood of having large deposits of oil.
[Construction trucks and oil rig towers appear on screen as test wells are drilled. The scene scrolls down to show the wells going deep into the earth. Radar waves are shown penetrating the earth to determine the size of the oil fields. Hybrid wells are shown extending at an angle from the main wells.]
But then they don’t simply start drilling multiple holes in the best locations. They take all of the possible formation sites and make test well holes. This is to see if oil is in any of the selected locations. Then they begin to test to see the size of the field in each location.
Once they have some impression of the overall size and dimension of the various fields, they look for hybrid production sites that will allow them to maximize the total oil accessible from the planned investments.
[The first well drilled is highlighted in the oil field scene, followed by the other wells.]
This process of finding one answer, and then other multiple answers before you start testing the relative value of each of the ideas assumes the first answer is never the best. Then, after they test each of the sites, they never assume that one of the sites is the best answer. They look for a hybrid solution that will allow them to leverage their resources to take advantage of multiple sources of value.
[The animated scene of three team members in a meeting at a table returns to the screen. One team member transforms into a large badger wearing glasses. An X appears across the badger. The text The Willing Suspension of Disbelief appears on the screen.]
As a team, never let one of your team members try to badger you to accept their answer as the best. Listen to all ideas, and then try to open your mind up to consider even more ideas. We sometimes call this phase the willing suspension of disbelief.
[A male team member with arms folded appears on the screen next to a picture of a brain, which represents an idea. A crank, flag, and propeller are then added to the idea/brain, along with a text banner which says Modify Your Ideas. The man gestures positively toward the modified idea and smiles. The text Test 3-5 ideas appears on the screen. The brain/idea icon switches direction on the screen representing hybrid options.]
Never assume an idea will not work. Try to figure out how you could modify the idea to make it possible. It will be necessary for you to narrow the ideas you test to 3-5 to find out how much value each idea would create if implemented. Then look for hybrid options that utilize some of the elements of several ideas to find the value-maximizing recommendation.
[The male team member is shown in a scene with three customers or clients presenting his recommendation, as represented by the brain/idea picture with the propeller, crank, and flag. The text your recommendation, options you did not select, assumptions you made, and value of each idea appears on the screen along with a different version of the brain/idea picture representing options not selected. An exclamation point appears in a speech bubble next to each customer’s head. The text NEVER wait until the final presentation before you show your recommendation appears on screen, along with an illustration of a battery with a rabbit’s head, representing a surprise idea. Text then appears on screen restating the final conclusions.]
Then, when you present your recommendation, also show the options you did not select and explain the assumptions you made and the value projected by each of the ideas. This is valuable because people at the company may know some things you do not know that might cause them to see more value in some of your ideas not selected than you were aware of.
This is also the reason why you should never wait until the final presentation before you show your recommendation. There should never be a surprise at the final presentation. Always share your conclusions and recommendations early enough that you can take feedback from the company sponsor and modify your recommendations with the added information.
Reflection Questions
Research-Based Project Reflection Questions
What are three different conclusions you could consider as recommendations for your sponsor?
What methods or approaches did you use to come to these conclusions?
How did you, or how will you, measure the best conclusion that you will recommend to your sponsor?
Activity-Based Project Reflection Questions
What activities did you consider to meet your deliverables?
How did you define the value created by your activities?
How will you measure or prioritize the value of your activities?
As a team/co-workers, you need to sit down and discuss what conclusions or hybrid conclusions you can suggest for your sponsor. Keep in mind that a hybrid conclusion is often the best type of conclusion. However, you must also choose which conclusion or hybrid conclusion you will recommend. When you can assign a monetary or value measurement to the conclusions and hybrids, an efficient frontier analysis can highlight hybrids and which option is the value-maximizing option.
Efficient frontier analysis is a tool used by analysts to determine what course of action will generate the maximum return for the least amount of risk. In simpler terms, it is a way of determining what course of action will give the biggest bang for your buck. An example of an efficient frontier is shown below:
Source: investopedia.com
Your sponsor will have some sort of risk tolerance limit – this might be a budget constraint, a time limit, or some other limit on a resource. They will only want to invest so much of their personal or company time and money into your proposal. With those constraints in mind, your job is to go through each of your proposed conclusions and figure out where they land on your efficient frontier chart.
Start by creating a chart with "return" or "value" on the y-axis and "risk" or "capital" on the x-axis.
Consider each of your conclusions with your team and plot out the realistic results of their actions. Make a realistic estimate of how much money/return each conclusion would generate.
Consider how much each of your conclusions would cost. Be generous in your estimates of cost – you will likely overstate return and understate risk if you are not careful and realistic.
Chart each conclusion out on your graph as a dot or coordinate pair. Keep doing this until you have charted all of your conclusions.
You should have a few different options in front of you at this point. Your job is to now evaluate all of your options based on your sponsor's constraints. Eliminate any conclusions that are obviously outside your sponsor's constraints; you would eliminate, for example, an option that required a $1 million investment if your sponsor only had $30,000 to spend. If an option falls just outside the constraints, you may decide you want to present it as a stretch case to your sponsor. Make sure the return is high enough to justify such a decision.
Hybrid conclusions are created by taking some of the elements of one recommendation and combining them with some or all of the elements of a second recommendation. This hybrid recommendation may have lower risk or higher returns than the original recommendations (or both lower risk and higher return).
The best conclusions generate high returns for minimal risk. These conclusions will end up charting in the upper-left quartile of your chart. If none of your conclusions generate very much return for the risk, you might need to consider new conclusions or combining conclusions. Continue this exercise until you have a solid conclusion.
Reflection Questions
Have you or your team/co-workers developed alternative conclusions and options to recommend to the project sponsor? If yes, what are they?
Have you or your team/co-workers considered making hybrids of the options to further increase the value creation of the recommendation?
Which options would you most likely combine to make an interesting hybrid conclusion/opinion?
Some recommendations don’t lend themselves as well to financial analysis. You may not have the numbers to create an efficient frontier, or maybe your sponsor isn’t as concerned about the finances. In these kinds of situations, you should create a prioritization table.
A prioritization table consists of decision criteria, conclusions, and a cross tab of each criterion and conclusion. Your decision criteria are the key points by which you want to evaluate your decision. Some examples could include the cost of the project, difficulty to execute, alignment with company values, etc. By assigning a value to each of these criteria based on their importance, you can compare each of your conclusions and come up with the best choice.
Start by brainstorming all the evaluation criteria you want to consider for each conclusion. What sorts of considerations would be important for your sponsor to be aware of before they choose a course of action?
Write down your criteria. Assign each of them a value out of 10 so that the sum of all your criteria adds up to 10.
List out your alternative conclusions above your criteria in separate columns so that you create a chart. Rate each alternative conclusion by each criterion using a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most positive and 1 being the most negative for each criterion.
Multiply each of the ratings you just created by the value assigned to each criterion. Add these numbers up by conclusion until you have a single sum for each conclusion. This value is the “attractiveness” value for each conclusion. The conclusion with the highest value is the conclusion that should be most attractive to your sponsor based on the criteria you’ve identified.
In the example below, a team has identified cost, ease, and visibility as their criteria. They have lots of money so cost is of little concern; visibility, however, is very important to them.
[Image] Step 1
They have three potential campaigns they can run. Campaign #1 is expensive, but is easy to execute and would generate decent visibility. Campaign #2 is just about average on all fronts. Campaign #3 would be cheap, but would take a lot of time to execute and would not be as visible.
[Image] Step 3
After multiplying criteria by conclusions and adding everything up, Campaign #1 has the highest value and should be chosen.
[Image] Last Step
Reflection Questions
Does your project have alternatives that could be measured by a prioritization table?
What would be some of the criteria that might be used to measure the attractiveness of each alternative?
Your report will need to include specific needs sections. These sections will provide detailed elements of your report to meet the specific needs of your audience. Your report should include an executive summary and appendix, and it may include a user's guide if your project needs one.
An executive summary is for the decision-makers, your sponsor, or your sponsor’s company. It should only be one page in length, and it should establish the following:
The purpose and background of the project
Recommendations and a discussion on the implication of those recommendations or a discussion of the impact of activities completed in your project if it is an activity-based project. If the project contains both research and activities, then elements of both styles will be required.
Conclusions that support given recommendations or that support the list of activities completed during the project.
Information supporting conclusions or a description of the work plan driving the activities completed or tools created.
Quantify impact by listing dollars or percent improvement whenever possible in the Executive Summary.
Don't be afraid to forecast the impact that will be made by the recommendations or activities of the project.
An appendix should include all the data sources from which you derived your conclusions. Regardless of whether your project was recommendation- or activity-based, both reports should include the following items in their appendix:
All data gathered during the project
All surveys, templates, and interview guides with the data and results
All of the databases and reports gathered for the project (do not include the entire report of copyrighted materials but cite their references)
All of the charts and graphs created for the project
Descriptions of activities implemented during the project and the value created
Feedback on the impact of the activities completed during the project
A user’s guide is created for those who are going to implement your solutions or re-create any activities you have done. This includes any directions for tools you used or created or activities you carried out. Your user’s guide may include some of the following elements:
The purpose of the tool, database, program, activity, and so on
Explain the problem your project was designed to fix or the opportunity it was designed to capture.
A description of the tool, program, or activity; its elements, and its desired output
A step-by-step process on how to operate the tool, program, or activity to achieve the desired outcome
Warnings, limitations, difficulties, and so on in operating the tool, program, or activity
Troubleshooting recommendations to be taken if there are problems with the tool, program, or activity
You may use outside resources in your report. These can include professional articles from the Ensign College Library, reports from library databases, studies, charts, graphs, and so on. These could contain potential sources of help for the tool, program or activity
However, as with any copyrighted material, you must cite the material properly in your report. Here are some pointers for using copyrighted material:
You may insert into your report individual charts, graphs, and tables that were included in any articles or reports. You may not use all the charts, graphs, and tables from a report, but you can use a selection of all charts, graphs, or tables from a report. You must cite the reference of the report they came from.
You can excerpt individual quotations, sentences, and paragraphs from any reports, articles, and so on, but you must include them as a quotation within your report and provide proper citation for them.
You may paraphrase in your own words any page, chapter, or the entire report as long as it is in your own words, but you should still cite what you are paraphrasing.
This content is provided to you freely by Ensign College.
Access it online or download it at https://ensign.edtechbooks.org/projectbased_internships/the_final_report.
