USF Research and Development Consultant Memorandum

Assignment Description

You are working for Rešitel International, a 14,000 person consulting organization. You work in a division of the organization that provides client services in your field. That is, all of the types of professional work products your field produces are marketed to Rešitel clients as a consulting service.  Your manager has asked you to write a memorandum to be provided to your division leaders. This memorandum will make a case that increasing the number of employees in the division proficient in statistics and probability will improve provided services and increase profitability. The leaders he has asked you to address the memorandum to are Fiya Basak, Vice President of [your field]; Anozie Nwaike, senior manager of [your field]; and Elizabeth Rice, senior manager of [your field]. You will also copy it to your boss, John Coltrane. You are to assume that these leaders are senior professionals in your field with the knowledge that entails. Specifically, Mr. Coltrane is requesting that the division require and verify probability and statistics proficiency for all new hires in the division.  He has tasked you with accomplishing this by:

Highlighting how statistics and probability are used in the services your division provides to clients. To support your argument, this part of the document will summarize aspects of the services your division provides in which statistics and probability are applied and for what purpose each is used. Note: In this section, I expect you to use the research you did for assignment IDL 1.  However, as you are writing to a different audience for a different purpose, you will use it differently.  If you feel your research from IDL 1 is inadequate for this assignment, you may add additional sources.

The importance to division success of having all employees engaged in data analytics (analyzing data using probability and statistics for increased profitability and meeting division goals). For this part of the work, he is providing you with a document (Links to an external site.) summarizing external research data provided by a Rešitel partner, Deloitte, to support this case. He wants you to review this data for: 

How the data provided can support your argument that more data literate/probability and statistics proficient employees will make the division more profitable, and

1. Is the data Deloitte collected relevant to Rešitel? Are the participants from whom Deloitte collected the data similar enough to Rešitel to suggest their findings would be applicable to Rešitel? You will include what the data indicates, the source of the data provided, the size and reliability of the study, and how that data source aligns or not with Rešitel as an organization.  

After reviewing the data you will use it to make the case that your division will be more profitable if more employees are able to engage in data analytics (that is applying probability and statistics knowledge.)

1. Please note: Some of you will work in organizations with coworkers with diverse professional skills, all making a specific contribution to producing a product. This assignment is NOT structured for that type of organization. As an example, you will not present this as an engineer working in a manufacturing facility. You will not present this as a cybersecurity expert working within a financial institution. 

Compose Content 

Document Structure

To complete this assignment, you must use this memorandum template Download memorandum template. This memorandum example document Download memorandum example documentprovides an example you can refer to for length, level of detail, language, and final appearance. The topic is a bit different than what you are doing, so, copying the document and changing some words will not work. Use all headings as shown.  

Your document will have the following elements: 

Memorandum Header.  Use the header and header information on the provided template until you get to the “Re” line which is what the document is about and is the same as a title. Compose this line to specifically say what your memorandum is about as succinctly as possible. 

Introduction. As with any professional document, the beginning of the document needs to provide readers with an overview of why it is important to them and what it will address. State what is important to the audience when it comes to agreeing to your request. Include a thesis statement, that presents the main idea of the document and why it is being presented.  State that you will support this in two ways – 1) the ways in which probability and statistics are used in the work of the [your field] division; and 2) how probability and statistics proficiency of employees contribute to organizational success.

• Probability and Statistics Use in [Your Field] Division Services. Using the understanding of probability and statistics in your field you developed in assignment IDL 1, revise your communication of this material to support the arguments you are making to executives. To assist you with this, remember the roles of executives within the organization as described in your reading. Be sure you explain these in terms of their priorities. In-text citations are required in this section. 
• The Importance of Probability and Statistics Literacy for Our Division’s Operational Success.  In this section, you will present your argument as a cohesive well-written case.  You will incorporate the data from  Analytics and AI-driven enterprises thrive in the age of with: The culture catalyst (Links to an external site.) as evidence. At least one in-text citation is required in this section; a minimum of two in-text citations are required if you complete the extra credit.  

Extra Credit Option: If you complete the extra credit option detailed below, it will be part of this section. 

Conclusion. In this section, reverse the order of your introduction content, maintain your meaning but use different words. Be sure to end with a statement of what you accomplished and how by providing this memorandum. 

Reference List. The document will end with an APA formatted reference list (Links to an external site.) with a minimum of 4 sources.  Only include items on the reference list for which you have made an APA in-text citation (Links to an external site.) in your document. You are required to have an in-text citation at any place in your memorandum where you have used the ideas, data, or images of others. 

Completing Review and Revision 

Review and Revise Your Document Draft 

After completing your document draft, review, revise and edit your document. We will be looking at: 

Content – Did you include all of the required elements, meeting the specific requirements? (If you have completed the extra credit, did you included the needed in-text citation?)

Coherence – Does your document flow (Links to an external site.) so that a reader can follow what you have written as one cohesive document? To check for this, read your document out loud to yourself. Ask yourself as you go if the message is continuous, with one idea leading to the next.  

Clarity – have you stated specifically what you mean throughout your document?  To check for this, look for hedging, (Links to an external site.) slang, idioms,  (Links to an external site.)vague words (Links to an external site.) and remove them or replace them with more precise terms. Sentence structure, spelling and punctuation play a role in this, so while we will not be grading you on these directly if they negatively impact the understanding of your document, you will lose points. 

Concise Wording (Links to an external site.) – eliminate meaningless words or phrases, redundant qualifiers, repetitive ideas.  

Revise your work as needed. Even professional writers revise their work to make it better. If you feel you need extra support with your writing please take advantage of one of the following resources: 

Review professional and general writing resources for assistance with your final submittal revisions

Attend open help sessions, see the meet your instructors page for times and connection information. 

Make an appointment with the USF Writing Studio (Links to an external site.), you will need to plan ahead 

Make an appointment with me during office hours through MS Bookings (Links to an external site.)