MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE & INFORMATION

GUIDANCE NOTES
General Guidelines for presentation
Front cover sheet containing: College name, student name and student ID number, programme of
study, unit title, tutor and submission date.

The work should be word processed/pdf.

Fonts face Times New Roman Arial or Calibri.
1.5 line-spacing.
Document margins : < or = 2.5cm or less than 1.5cm.
Guided word count: 3,000 - 4,000 (+ or 10%).
TASK 1

Writing format- Internal Report

Learners are expected to follow all the conventional skills for writing assignments in report format.
Cover Page
To:
From:
Date:
Subject:
Executive Summary:
Contents Page
Section 1
1.1: The range of decisions to be taken
1.2: The information and knowledge needed to ensure effective decision taking
1.3: The different sources of information
1.4: Recommendations for improvement

Section 2
2.1: Stakeholder communication plan

Summary & conclusion

Appendix

GUIDANCE NOTES:
HOW TO ANSWER TASK 01
Question - 1
Based on the 3 levels of management in your selected organisation, discuss the
major decisions that are taken by Management at each level. (AC 1.1)
Key tips:

Explain 3 Levels of Management

in an organisation and decisions
that are taken by each Level of
Management/Managers
i.e.
Strategic Decisions, Tactical
Decisions, Operational Decisions.

Based on the selected organisation

provide examples.

Consider wide range of decisions that need to be taken in order to arrive at clear
description and understanding of what an organisations information and knowledge
needs are likely to be.

Question - 2
Examine the information and knowledge which will support/ensure effectiveness of
the decisions taken by Management that have been stated above. (AC 1.2.)
Key tips:
Different Levels of management needs different levels information and understanding
-Explain 3 Levels of Information available in an organisation.
Strategic Information
Tactical Information
Operational Information

Identify the characteristics of the information required for each type of decision.
(See diagram below). How would these characteristics affect the effectiveness if
the decision? Use examples to relate your answer to the given/selected organisation.

Some additional points you may consider including in your answer would be;
Different organisations have different information and knowledge needs.
Information and knowledge needs of a one organisation may be very different to
another organisation.
Different departments/divisions have different information and knowledge needs.
People and teams within the same organisation may have different information
and knowledge needs than others. Some examples of different needs of
information and knowledge are very useful in this part of the assignment. (HR
department, Marketing department, Production department, Finance department,
etc.)
Information and knowledge needs may change from time to time.
Consider what and how knowledge and information requirements may change
over time and what organisation can do in order to respond to accommodate these
requirements.

Question 3
Assess the internal and external sources of information for decisions making. (AC
1.3.)
Key tips:
You can start by explaining the various sources such as internal and external, formal
and informal sources, primary and secondary sources of data and information
available for the organisation.
Refer to activity 1.3 that you have completed in the class. This will help you to
construct your answer.
Source
Advantages
Disadvantages

Ensure that you relate your answer to the chosen organisation by providing
appropriate examples.
Additionally you can Use qualities of good information (cost, reliability, quality or
value, time or duration, etc.) and conduct an assessment to compare different sources
of information. Based on the selected organisation provide examples.

Question 4
Provide any recommendations to improve information and knowledge available to
your selected organization. (AC 1.4.)
Provide any recommendations that can improve the selected organisations
communication system/ data collection methods.
Examples:
Recommendations to improve quality and quantity of information gathered,
speed which it is gathered, efficiency of use or the information disseminated
by the organisation.
Recommendations to reduce the amount of information in some areas which
are not used by the organisation.
Organisation is highly depending on internal sources. So you can recommend
good external sources for them with your own justifications.
Make recommendations to improve formal communication within the
organisation.
Inside the shop, sign board letters are too small and customers cant read those
properly. So you can recommend better sign boards for their customers.
Justify recommendations by explaining how and why these recommendations make
the system better. It is very important that you justify your suggestions
4

Question 5
You need to prepare a communication plan. The following template is a suggestion
of how you could construct your plan.
Stakeholders
affected by the
decision
How to make
contact
How to involve
stakeholders
Proposals to
encourage
participation

Key tips:
First row: -

Based on the selected organisation identify stakeholders that will be

affected by the decision to expand the business (Identify at least 3
different stakeholders who will be affected by this decision).
Second row: - How should the organisation contact these stakeholders in order to build
relationships
You need to draft some communications to be used to make contact with the
different stakeholders. (The material that you develop needs to be attached as
appendices).
You can select the materials that you wish to draft from the list below;
o A formal letter to the shareholders explaining the proposals of the company
o A questionnaire to be used in a survey of potential customers from the new
location
o A leaflet to be distributed among the community of the proposed location
o A brief letter/email to your existing suppliers informing the new expansion
o A poster communicating the expansion to the staff of the organisation
Please feel free to use your imagination and creativity in developing these
communication materials. All you need to remember is the material need to be practical
and suit the intended purpose and audience.
Third row: - :
You can think of how the concept of personal networking can be used to engage
stakeholders.

 Propose methods the organisations can use to involve the stakeholders that you have
identified in the previous answers
Some methods that you can consider in your answer would be (Explain briefly how it
will help to get them involved);
o Focus groups with customers Include a list of questions that you intend to
ask customers during this focus group as an appendix.
o Conferences/Meetings/workshops for employees Include an agenda for
the meeting as an appendix
o Survey/Feedback from the community Prepare survey questions that you
intend to ask the community or draft a feedback form for complaints and
include it in appendix.
o General meeting with shareholders Agenda for the next general meeting
(Attach as an appendix)
o One to one interviews with suppliers Interview guidelines on how to
conduct the interviews (Attach in as an appendix).
Fourth row:- You need to make proposals on how your company can encourage
participation of the identified stake holders in the decision making process. Some ideas
that could be used would be;
Providing incentives
Appointing dedicated public relations personnel
Formulating companywide policies to encourage involving stakeholders
Educating staff on stakeholder engagement.
Briefly explain each of the proposed methods and how it will help to encourage
stakeholder participation.

PROVIDE A GENERAL CONCLUSION HIGHLIGHTING THE KEY

POINTS AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT YOU MAKE TO
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

HOW TO ANSWER TASK 02

For this task you are required to prepare a presentation to be conducted during the board
meeting.

An important point to remember in preparing your presentation is the audience the

senior management team.

The duration of the presentation is 15 minutes. So you should not prepare more than
10 slides (excluding the first slide) to cover all questions. Given below is a suggested
structure which will help you to plan the presentation.
o Slide 1 The cover page which includes details of yourself as the presenter
and the topic.
o Slide 2 Brief introduction of what you will be presenting.
o Slide 3 - The existing methods of communication used by your selected
organisation. Think about how your organisation communicate internally/
externally/formally/informally etc.
o Slide 4 The existing methods used
collect/process/store/and distribute information

by

the

organisation

to

o Slide 5 Explain what are the problems the organisation is facing with
existing systems that you have identified in the previous two slides
o Slide 6 Make recommendations to improve the problems that you have
identified. For example you may suggest that they should upgrade the
information system using ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.
Your Recommendations should include how to improve access to the
information system. For example you can suggest methods such as
intranets/web
portals
which
will
enable
different
users
(staff/customers/suppliers etc) to access information.
o Slide 7 Prepare a plan (Gantt chart) on how you would implement this
suggestion.

Preparing your reflective statement;

o Explain the activities that you carried out
o Explain what are the positive experiences and negative experiences you felt
when you carried out these activities
o Explain what you would do differently in the future to avoid the negative
experiences.

HOW TO ANSWER TASK 03

Create a personal plan to improve your own communication skills. (AC
3.4.)
Use the give format and create a personal plan to improve communication skills.
Objectives
(original)
What do I want
to be able to do
better?

Success Criteria
How will I recognise
success?
How will I review
and measure my
improvement?

Actions/ Strategies
What methods will I
use to achieve my
learning objectives?

Implementation
How will I practice
and apply what I
learn?

Resources
What
resources do
I need?

Time
How much
time do I
need?

Objective 01
Objective 02

Objective 03

Provide an Overall Conclusion at the end of your assignment