Our team’s selected problem or issue

Our selected issue is the impact Covid-19 has on homeless and housing insecure communities in Florida. This problem is important in the community because Tampa and the St. Petersburg metropolitan area has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the entirety of the U.S. In the same vein, many of the housing insecure in our area are low-income USF students.The housing crisis has hit our area very hard, with many previously affordable apartments and housing options, for students and regular residences alike, becoming unaffordable. Housing on campus is limited and forces many students to have to look off campus, which is becoming unrealistic for many students. 

INSTRUCTIONS 

REPORT INSTRUCTIONS

As we have discussed over the course of the semester, writing in the workplace is most often done collaboratively. In this final project of the semester, you will collaboratively compose a formal report. This project allows you to apply all the skills you’ve developed in the previous three projects:

Analysis of audience and purpose

Composition for a specific audience and purpose with a tailored writing style

Creation and integration of visuals

Engagement in significant research

Participation in collaborative work

You will create an extended work of professional and technical writing that allows you to showcase what you have learned while further developing your collaborative skills and leveraging each other’s strengths to make a thorough, effective, accurate and well-designed report.

In the first week, you’ll get into teams and focus on setting up a successful collaboration. You’ll have three weeks to compose a full draft of your report, and one week to revise for the final draft.

Your report will include data visualizations to establish the scope of the problem and/or potential impacts of solutions. Visuals are a necessary element of effective report, because, as you have learned, they make data accessible for the audience in an engaging format. Your visualizations should be fair and accurate, and also tailored to your audience and purpose.

Download Feasibility Report Rubric

Feasibility Report Project

• Goals
• Report
• Understand and apply the conventions of a report
• Address a specific problem and develop realistic potential solutions to that problem 
• Integrate evidence gathered from research to support an argument

Use data visualizations to integrate data in support of an argument

Apply the stylistic conventions of professional writing to craft an effective argument

Apply principles of document design to create a visually appealing document designed for readability

Presentation

Use visual design principles to develop appealing and appropriate slides

Practice effective presentation skills

Collaboration

Work as a team to collaboratively produce a successful formal report

In completing the Feasibility Report assignment, you will be reporting on local problem and complete the following activities:

Research the problem, to include

Background and context

Quantitative data (e.g., statistics, demographics, etc.)

• Qualitative data (e.g., interviews or surveys, etc.)
• Develop explicit decision criteria (at least three) used to assess the feasibility of potential solutions
• Decision criteria: Variables or characteristics that are important to the organization making the decision. (i.e., human resources, budget, real property issues, environmental issues, usability, etc.)
• Generate solutions (at least three) that significantly that work to improve, if not fix the problem
• Write a feasibility report presenting your work that synthesizes your research with their decision criteria to evidence the feasibility of all solutions provided, and also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each solution
• Your feasibility report will include at least two data visualizations tailored to your purpose and audience

Note that you are not picking your favorite solution in the feasibility report. The job of the feasibility report is to present the problem in context and supply three well-researched solutions with a discussion of feasibility and relative costs/benefits of each. What you are doing is preparing information that would enable the recipient of the report to make an informed decision regarding what to do about the problem.

Assignment: The Feasibility Report

Working in teams, you will write a formal feasibility report about a specific issue on campus, in the workplace, or in our community. The report will analyze the issue, present at least three possible actions/solutions that address the situation, and assess the feasibility of each solution using decision criteria relevant to the problem and supported by research.

• Feasibility reports are used to assess whether an idea or plan is practical. The feasibility report presents possible solutions and assesses their feasibility. It does not select a solution and recommend or propose its implementation. Feasibility reports answer questions such as:
• What is the problem and what are the best approaches for solving it?

Is a particular course of action likely to succeed?

Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

What are the pros and cons?

• What are the alternative courses of action?

Should anything be done at all?

Is the timing right for action?

• Research underpins the analysis of the situation, the grounds for identifying specific decision criteria, and the feasibility analysis of your solutions. Also, solutions must be realistic (i.e., sorry, no flying cars). Remember, audience matters. In picking your decision criteria, you must think about your audience’s priorities and values, and in analyzing feasibility, you must think about what is realistic and feasible for your audience.

Presentation

• A persuasive presentation is key to making a successful report that would result in action. Presentations can be given in the final week of the semester. Student teams should create and present a final presentation that outlines your report, including a description of the problem, decision criteria, and potential solutions. The presentation format would follow the format of the written report with rhetorical choices to edit content and facilitate maximum audience impact. 
• Collaboration
• Successful collaborative writing is a major objective of the project. You will be asked to consider your work habits and the implications of those habits when working collaboratively. In teamwork, leverage team member strengths in the workflow and in assigning duties–i.e., math skills, attention to detail, writing skills, visual design skills, strong organizational skills.  Also build into your workflow ways to negotiate work habits like procrastination or perfectionism to ensure that all team members complete work on time and up to the teams specifications. The initial memo deliverable includes a Team Charter that asks you to be both critically reflexive and honest with the team about your work habits, and to think through how the team will work together. Collaborative skills are further developed through regular Team Progress Reports. The efficacy of the team’s collaborative efforts is reflected in the Individual Team Evaluations submitted at the end of the semester.
• Feasibility Report Deliverables

You will have several components to the team project:

Memo to the Instructor

• explains the team’s planned course of action for the project
• Includes Team Charter and Work Plan
• Formal Feasibility Report

The Feasibility Report must include at least two data visualizations that are tailored to your audience and purpose.

• Presentation

Team Progress Reports

Self and Team Evaluations

Sample Format for Feasibility Report

Overview

Abstract

Purpose of Report

• Background/Analysis of Problem
• List of decision criteria (with justification) used to judge the solutions’ feasibility
• Solution 1
• Description
• Whether/how/how well it satisfies the decision criteria
• Research proving whether or it is feasible
• Solution 2

Description

Whether/how/how well it satisfies the decision criteria

Research proving whether or it is feasible

Solution 3

Description

Whether/how/how well it satisfies the decision criteria

Research proving whether or it is feasible

Call to Action

Is/Is not taking action to address the problem feasible?

Why/Why not

When/How (Now/later; Need this/that)

• Do any of your solutions have particular (dis)advantages?

References