Upon completion of their meeting with the client, the students held a team meeting to review their notes and to draft a confirmation letter.
The confirmation letter included a narrative explaining the students’ understanding of the current situation, the issues to be addressed, the process which they would follow to address those issues, what they planned to deliver as a final product to the client, and a timetable for completion.
This confirmation letter may be viewed by clicking on the link below.
Additionally, the students prepared an introductory letter for the client to send to the prospective interviewees to alert them that a student would be calling to schedule an interview. This letter is shown in the image below.
In general, IMMEDIATELY following the initial client meeting, the students should meet with the faculty supervisor and go over what they learned in the client meeting in detail. This should include an understanding of the business and its purpose, and the issues to be addressed by the Field Study.
The team captain should assign the other members of the team the task of writing a draft of the confirmation letter to the client. This document should include, at a minimum, the following:
- Background – a brief description of the history of the business and its role in the community;
- The Current Situation – a concise summary of the need for the survey and the specific issues to be addressed;
- The Project – an outline of the specific work steps the students will be taking and the product (report) they plan to produce as a result of their work. Included should be an estimate of timing for the Field Study – deadlines for any progress report that might be needed and definitely a firm date when the project will be completed.
Students should plan to write the confirmation letter to the educational partner within two days, and present it to the team captain for editing. The team captain should present the edited letter – fully typed – to the faculty supervisor for a final edit. The team should then make the final changes (if any) to the letter and prepare it for delivery to the client.
The confirmation letter should be hand delivered to the client no longer than three days following the initial client meeting.