MN7P13 Dissertation | Business Problem Solving Project Proposal Name of assessment: Business problem solving project proposal Short description: A 2,500 word proposal for a business problem solving

MN7P13 Dissertation | Business Problem Solving Project Proposal Name of assessment: Business problem solving project proposal Short description: A 2,500 word proposal for a business problem solving project that may become your dissertation in MN7P13

Weighting: 70%

Due date:

Feedback release date: Groups will get immediate feedback from their tutor and written feedback over the Christmas break from the module leader for MN7P13.

Assessment guidance Acting as a consultant, you will select a business problem faced by a client. You will propose a business problem-solving project made up of the following sections:

Section Section 1: The business client and their business problem (10%, 250 words): A brief summary and history of your client, including a decision-maker who has commissioned this project.

A short description of the situation that prevails for your client at the outset of problem solving (i.e., the state of affairs that are problematic).

Quantify the problem against the benchmark of competitors (e.g. vs. Pepsi), providing your data visually in a graph, including the source of your data.

A set of observations or complications around the situation that creates the tension or dynamic that captures the problem (i.e., what changed or what went wrong that created the problem).

Quantify how your client’s problem evolved over time (e.g. data from 2020-2025), providing your data visually in a graph, including the source of your data.

In the form of an objective (e.g., To reduce Coca-Cola’s plastic waste by 50% by 2026 without sacrificing profit margin), define a specific, measurable and actionable problem.

Tip 1: How you define your problem should be consistent with how you measure and quantify it.

Tip 2: Choose a specific problem so that you have clear keywords (e.g. plastic waste) that can be used in the next section to easily search for and locate relevant literature.

Tip 3: Get to the root of the problem and do not define your problem in terms of symptoms of a business problem (e.g. loss of market share, shares price, sales).

Section 2: Problem structure and components logic tree (20%, 500 words): Use an initial logic tree (i.e., factor/lever/component) to break the problem into component parts or issues (e.g., causes of the problem) to illustrate and define the basic structure of the problem.

This should be evidence-based, using a combination of credible industry and academic literature, evidence and theory, covering the problem generally (based upon the academic literature) and the problem in the context of your client (based upon the industry literature).

Provide a fully-referenced commentary of the logic tree.

It is expected that this logic tree will have three layers – branches should expand at each layer (e.g., a 2-4-8 structure).

Tip: Do a literature review to identify at least 8 causes of your client’s business problem and then backwards to categorise/pair up these causes to create your logic tree structure.

Section 3: Solution drivers and hypothesised solutions logic tree (30%, 750 words): Using the basic problem structure logic tree as a guide to locate further industry and academic literature, evidence and theory, produce a more complete logic tree (i.e., deductive logic, hypothesis or hybrid of the two) of:

3 layers of solution drivers (i.e., questions or verbs), which help us to see potential pathways to solve the problem, concluding with your hypothesised solutions as the leaves of your logic tree. Provide a fully-referenced commentary of the logic tree. It is expected that this logic tree will have four layers – branches should expand at each layer, although not necessarily for the fourth layer of hypothesised solutions (e.g. a 2-4-8-8 structure).

Tip: Copy and paste your first logic tree and then reframe each cell from problem components (i.e., nouns) to solution drivers

(i.e., questions or verbs) to easily create the first three layers of your second logic tree, then add a layer of detailed hypothesised solutions as leaves to your second logic tree.

Section 4: Prioritisation of hypothesised solutions (20%, 500 words): Using the prioritisation matrix, consider all of the hypothesised solutions from the leaves of your second logic tree to prioritise those that have the biggest impact on solving the problem and which you can most affect to find the critical path to solving your problem.

Prune the tree to remove the ‘leaves’ that are not on the critical path to solving the problem, establishing the hypothesised solutions that will be taken forward to be workplanned.

Provide a fully-referenced commentary of the prioritisation matrix.

Tip: Prioritise at least 4 hypothesised solutions to have enough solutions to achieve an overall resolution, but no more than 6 hypothesised solutions to ensure than your subsequent analysis is in sufficient depth.

Section 5: Workplan (15%, 375 words): Starting from the prioritised hypothesised solutions established in the previous step, propose a workplan for how you will inform their design and implementation via data collection and analyses, so to be able to reach a conclusion on the solution to the problem.

For each prioritised hypothesised solution identify the following columns in a chunky workplan:

a research question that will guide data collection and analysis to inform their design and implementation, the data required and how you will access or collect it, the data analysis techniques you will use, timing of this work and the anticipated analysis end product (e.g., a graph). Using a Gantt chart, produce a lean project plan covering key activities and fixed milestones of your proposed project over a three month period of work.

Tip: Do not ask research questions that measure the effect/impact/importance of your prioritised hypothesised solutions as this should have been established from the literature review in the previous prioritisation step to establish the impact of hypothesised solutions on the problem.

Section 6: One-day answer (5%, 125 words) Conclude your problem-solving project proposal with a one-day answer to convey what understandings are emerging, what unknowns still stand between you and the problem resolution and your best guess at a resolution at this stage of your project.

Tip: Follow the situation, observation, implication structure.

Supportive resources The group presentation process prepares you for this assessment.

Guide to referencing in the assessment You should use the Harvard referencing style and it is expected that you will provide in-text citations for all of your data and factual statements and a final slide for your end-of-text reference list.

Setting expectations for use of Generative AI

AI is a great tool for locating data and evidence, but you should verify the data and evidence through the sources that AI returns. You should not use AI to write any part of your work.

Feedback You will receive your mark and feedback 3 weeks from the deadline - Friday 30th January.

Re-assessment information If you fail this assessment and the module overall, you will have the opportunity to submit a re-assessment by 31 July 2026 at 11.59pm. You are permitted to improve your failed assessment using the same client and business problem or to change to a new client and business problem