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Final: Plan Into Action

The final is all about putting your strategic planning and tactical technology skills to work beyond the arena of the classroom. Your team will still need to use the POST methodology but the focus will be on implementation over detail.

Implement the technologies that execute a strategic plan, assess the outcome and determine lessons learned.

Implementation of technologies covered in this class.

Use of the POST methodology to create a strategic plan.

Coordinate team activities through a project management website.

A presentation of the final project activities (e.g., what you set out to do, what you did, outcomes and lessons).

Your Project Team

The project team: Depending on class size, you will be on a team of 3 - 5 people. This team will form at the beginning of the class and should have as good a mix as possible of technical, and non-technical people -- it will take all kinds to execute a successful project. Collaboration practices and team dynamics will be covered in a separate session, but make sure your team communicates well and often. If an issue between or among members arises, please contact me as soon as possible. This outreach will be held in strict confidence as we work to find a solution.

Should a majority of team members believe that one or more members is/are not contributing his/her share of effort (e.g., not completing tasks in a reasonable amount of time, missing team meetings without notice or warning, being non-communicative, evasive, or worse) then you do have the option to "fire" that person from the team. This should be the option of last resort and you must contact me in advance before breaking the news to your team member. "Fired" members will be given an alternate final assignment.

Your team will be required to use a project management system to coordinate your activities. See the Grading section for more details.

Getting started

In Li & Bernoff's book, the groundswell, they outline five goals that organizations can pursue in the groundswell. Your final project involves choosing an organization, product, service, etc., and focusing on one or more of these five goals for a project. The five goals are:

Listening: "Use the groundswell for research and to better understand your customers. This goal is best suited for companies that are seeking customer insights for use in marketing and development."

For example, your team could conduct a research project monitoring the identity of an organization online, or analyzing the traffic of its website versus its competitors. Your deliverable would be a report about the insights you yielded along with recommendations about how to act on the knowledge you have created in the report.

Talking: "Use the groundswell to spread messages about your company. Choose this goal if you're ready to extend your current digital marketing initiatives (banner ads, search ads, email) to a more interactive channel."

For example, your team could setup an integrated messaging center for an organization that allows people to subscribe to messages and receive updates through multiple networks and online services.

Energizing: "Find your most enthusiastic customers, and use the groundswell to supercharge the power of their word of mouth. This works best for companies that know they have brand enthusiasts to energize."

For example, your team could build an online community around an organization, product, service, or cause and provide resources for them to make it easy to recruit friends and distribute your organization's messages.

Supporting: "Set up groundswell tools to help your customers support each other. This is effective for companies with significant support costs and customers who have a natural affinity for each other."

For example, your team could setup a network of people around a single product, service or cause and provide them online information, knowledge and communication resources to assist each other.

Embracing: "Integrate your customers into the way your business works, including using their help to design your products. This is the most challenging of the five goals, and it's best suited to companies that have succeeded with one of the other four goals already."

For example, your team could bring together decision-makers at an organization along with customers, or potential customers, to collaborate on improving new or existing products/services.

It's important to remember that although these activities will likely be built using information technology, there is no rule that says you have to act exclusively online. For example, think of how a modern presidential campaign uses information technology to organize and rally supporters online who then go out into the "offline" world and support the cause. Some of the most powerful social technologies bring people together in the offline world as well as connecting them online.

Also, note that that the five goals are distinguished from each other, but actual implementation of one goal will likely blend with another. This is okay and is to be expected; use the goals as a starting point.

Going Through POST

Once you have an organization and identified which groundswell goal(s) you will be focusing on, the next step is to conduct a POST analysis to form the foundation of your project. Unlike the midterm, you do not have to demonstrate full situation analysis, risk assessment, etc., but I do want to see a full POST analysis, which means objectives with measurable metrics, an understanding of the people you need to reach, a strategy that is technology agnostic, and technologies that are applicable to the class.

This analysis will also be part of your final presentation to help demonstrate that you had a plan prior to implementation, so invest time making a cohesive plan. 

Implementation

Once you've completed your POST analysis, implement the technologies you identified. It's best to do this as early in the course as possible so you can make corrections and fine tune along the way. Make sure you are measuring everything and tracking that progress against your objectives.

Final Project Presentation

One way to think of this is as a slimmed down presentation version of your midterm. Make sure that you are dressed to impress and the presentation can go beyond a set of slides -- one year I was asked to wear a Snuggie during the presentation because the team had created a social network for fans of the blanket with sleeves.

You will have 10 - 15 minutes to take use through your project (including your POST analysis). See the "grading" section for more details.

Don't Forget Feedback

I want to make this assignment the best it can be, but I need your feedback to get it there.

This should be submitted by each member separately via replies to this page and as an email.

Submit as a reply to this page, feedback on your experience with the project, include strengths, weaknesses and any improvement ideas.

Submit as an email to me, feedback on your group: rate the performance of each member with 1. a description of how it was working with them and a letter grade on their contribution (this will be kept anonymous. Include a percentage breakdown: out of 100% possible, include the amount of work each person did as a percentage. The total from all members combined must equal 100%.

I will not be taking off points if you did a little more, or a little less than your fellow members. I am looking for major imbalances in work effort, so it is in your interest to provide an honest estimation of these percentages. Keep in mind that I should also be able to get a sense of the work distribution via your project management documentation, so if you did work for the project... then DOCUMENT IT.

In general the grade that the group gets will be the individual grade, but as a check against "the free rider" problem that can occur, these individual assessments will be factored in to the individual grade if there is significant imbalance.

700 points possible

Points off for cutting corners or other evidence of a lackluster effort

Creativity is welcome and encouraged

In general, each individual member will receive the group grade. However, in instances where I receive notice of an unreasonable disparity in individual contributions, I will consider a grade adjustment.

Tactics Implementation (70%)

Your grade for this section will be about the quality of the implementation/creation of these new media and social technologies. I will be looking for features, polish/presentation, technical functioning (it should work the first time). I should be able to see the thought put into whatever you chose to create. If I see that you just took an off-the-shelf product and did not put any attention or customization into it then I will grade you based on that effort. It is okay to use pre-designed templates, but you have to do something to make it your own.

Project Management Documentation (15%)

Your grade for this section: you will be required to demonstrate use of an organized approach to project management, including the use of 1. to-do lists, 2. centralized messaging, 3. milestones and 4. document collaboration (as you learned at the beginning of the course). When you submit your final project report, include login information to your project management site so I can review your documentation. (E.g., this could be an invite to your Google site, Basecamp site, etc., but I am open to reviewing whatever system your team decided to use.)

Project Presentation (15%)

Your grade for this section will be based on how well you communicate the following elements in your presentation:

Goal: What did you set out to accomplish in general?   People/Stakeholders: Clearly identify the people that need to be engaged in order to make your project successful. What did you learn about them and their technology/new media habits?

Objectives: How did you measure success? This needs to be specific -- increase "traffic" is not enough -- and measurable. E.g., increase unique visitors to the website by 10%, generate 10 comments on the blog, get 50 people to sign up for the podcast. Include how you planned to measure success (in numbers), how you measured it (Feedburner, Google Analytics, hand counting, etc.), and what your final results were.

Strategy: How did you set out to achieve your objectives?  NOTE: A strategy is not about the technology you will use, it is about what you plan to happen. E.g., Increase online interaction; connect existing customers with potential customers; build awareness of our website. Look back at the groundswell "objectives" for inspiration on your strategy.

Technologies: Based on your stakeholder data, your objectives, and your strategy, which technology (or technologies) did you use to execute your strategy and achieve your objectives. Tell me about the technologies you chose, why you chose them (based on the previous sections) and how you implemented them (e.g., which services, or software you chose, how often you updated your tactics, or when you measured how you were doing against your objectives and any other important parts of your implementation process.)

Lessons learned: What did you learn, what would you do differently, what advice would you give to others, etc.?

1. EACH student should complete the submission form below for credit (some questions are only for the team representative, however):
2.  
3. UIUC Students: Teams will present their projects during finals week.
4. SU Students: Teams will deliver a live presentation (using GoToMeeting.com, iChat Theater or another web meeting service) during finals week. Please schedule these presentations at least a week in advance.
5. Each team member should include feedback on this assignment as a reply to this page.

Google Docs | create presentations and documents online

280 Slides | create presentations online

Zoho | create presentations and documents online

SlideShare | view examples of presentations online, including several strategic and new business plans