Reference no: EM133103175

Write 2-4 page description of your proposed. This is where the real work actually begins. The paper that you create in this step must define and describe the subject of your IS project. This will likely involve research into the history of your subject, its current status, current environmental conditions, trends, market factors and other variables that you will need to consider in becoming familiar with the subject of your project. From this information, you are to explain and describe one or more problems or opportunities that your subject is facing. Then you are to develop appropriate research questions that if answered will solve the problem or allow your subject to take advantage of the opportunity that you have identified. You will also suggest tentative research objectives that if accomplished, will answer these questions.

You will also need to start becoming familiar with the set of analytical tools that are used in the type of IS option that you have selected and that are appropriate to the situation facing your subject and the problem or opportunity that you have described. What is the appropriate Marketing, Business, HR, Finance or Process Improvement plan? What goes into that type of plan? What are the tools of analysis used in the one that you have selected and how do they work? There are many tools that can be used. Which ones should be used and why? You should relate this to your research question(s) and the problem or opportunity that the plan will be used to address. Using what you have learned in your preliminary research about the type of IS Option Plan that you have chosen you will describe a little about your proposed project and some of the tools that you have found that might be applicable to the problem or opportunity that you will be addressing and why you feel that they are appropriate. Begin to use what you have learned from others in scholarly articles, on websites and in books in what you write. Use in-text citations in what you write and list your references at the end of the paper. Explain why and how what you have chosen will help in the situation that you describe. Do not begin your use of these tools in this paper (i.e. if you feel that a TOWS analysis would be helpful, explain why and how, but do not start listing and analyzing threats and opportunities).

You will be developing familiarity with both the subject of your IS and with the IS option that you have selected. You need to do this for a number of reasons. First, you will need to determine if you make a "good" choice. Will you have the necessary access to what you will need (personnel, proprietary information and processes, ability implement and measure change in a process)?

You need to be able to write about your subject and chosen IS option with a level of clarity and precision that will allow your potential advisor to read your 2-4 page description and know exactly what you have in mind to do. Forcing your thoughts to paper will help you to develop this clarity and prepare you to be able to discuss what you have planned when you meet with your potential advisor. Expect to revise your description several times before you meet with your advisor as your continued research enables you to become clearer on what your IS project will be.

One key to conducting good research is to approach the situation with questions rather than answers. What is meant by that can best be illustrated with an example. Suppose you choose to do a Marketing Plan IS. You have decided to start a restaurant. You have chosen a location, the type of food that you will serve, the kind of customer you will target, the décor and now you are going to write a marketing plan to justify the decisions that you have made and how you will carry them out. This is not the way to do a marketing plan. If you want to get into the restaurant business start with questions, not answers: What kind of restaurant is needed? What are the best locations? What market segment would be a good target? What kinds of foods would that segment most likely purchase? Let the data drive your decisions.

Since this is the first that you will be writing for others to read in connection with your IS it is important that you get started in the right way. There is something called "Bloom's Taxonomy" (or his revised taxonomy) that suggests that we can approach thinking at varying levels. Those levels range from the lowest where you can recall, explain or even apply ideas or concepts, to "Higher Order Thinking" levels where you analyze and evaluate ideas and concepts and even create some of your own. Much, if not most of your writing should reflect thinking on your part that provides evidence that you are employing higher order thinking skills. It is strongly recommended that before you start writing that you do some research and explore what these levels are, what it means to think and write at these higher levels and find some excellent examples to which you can refer as you begin your writing.