BUS477

The team business plan is worth 40% of your grade in BUS477.  It's due at the start of class next week.

I'd truly like to see every team in the class get a great grade on this assignment and get recommended to the Ken Spencer competition.  Here are a couple of ways to help improve your chances:

Understand How I Will Grade the Assignment

This is a no-brainer.  Use my grading scorecard as a checklist when you are doing a final pass over your paper.  You will earn a decent grade by making sure you've addressed all of the key elements in the scorecard.  Top grades will go to those papers that clearly demonstrate excellent research and understanding of what we discussed in class this semester.

Influence the Grading Scorecard

Over the course of a typical year, I will see hundreds of business plans from students and from real businesses looking for funding. 

I "invented" this scorecard to help me weigh the strengths and weaknesses of key aspects of a business.  The scorecard is good, but it's not perfect.

If you can convince me that:

• I should include categories that I have not noted
• I should remove categories that I have notes

then I will reward you with a full grade point as part of your class participation grade.  I will also consider updating the scorecard so the whole class will benefit this semester.

Notes:

• there are many hints and tips in the HBR articles I assigned last week
• any recommendation must come with a weighting.  If it's a net new category, you have to tell me which category also loses
• there are hundreds and hundreds of business plan attributes I could look at, and do.  However, to win at this challenge, you will need to come up with a category that is not identified already on the first page
• the scorecard has to be simple and practical