Per my agreements with the class I am forwarding the following to be posted in the web site for the class.

1) With the agreement of the instructor at the Richland site, 40% of the grade, which in the syllabus is allotted to the final exam, will instead by divided evenly as follows: 20% of the grade for the panel discussions on the 4 books, 20% of the grade for the final exam.

2) We are working on the final this week and will have it, per agreement, by July 26.

3) Descriptions of the panel discussions for the Renton session of 505: Each of the 4 groups will give a 1/2 hour presentation on 8/9 of their respective assigned text. The primary objective of this exercise will be to teach the rest of us this particular author's view of systems thinking and to compare/contrast their view with Senge's. The method of presentation, style, etc. will be up to your creativity. A straight forward, What's My Line, type panel would be fine. If you have ideas about how to convey this information more effectively, please exercise your judgment. The proof of you effectiveness will be whether we learn from your work. All team members must participate.

Team project: This will be a 20 page written report, which can include charts and data, etc. as well as a 30 minute presentation by the team in which all team members will participate. Select a real-world problem to solve. Analyze it using systems models and archetypes from the course. Come to conclusions, make recommendations, create an implementation plan based on your concepts.

I want a memo from each team the 26th of July with your team's problem statement. This should be no more than a brief paragraph describing the main facts about the problem. Identify the names of the team members from your team and what you are calling your group.

In essence you should consider yourselves management consulting firms who have been brought in to solve a complex problem for an organization that has suffered from doing the same things over and over, achieving the same ineffective results each time. Could their be hidden systems working here? Are there unaddressed forces that are suboptimizing, or worse, subverting results? Your consulting firm believe so. You have made effective use of the systems models and archetypes to unearth and reveal to former clients what really needs to be addressed to solve their complex problems. You have every confidence that these tools will be effective in displaying to me, your frustrated client at her wits end, what exactly is going on and how I really need to address the real issues. Since I am paying you handsomely, I expect a written report and I expect you to walk me through your findings, along with good explanations of your systems thinking diagrams when we meet for our final management briefing on 8/9.

4) I will bring sample grade contracts to class on the 19th to show you what I want from each of your teams. In essence you are providing me with grading criteria for each of your projects and you will discipline your results, up front, by establishing top performance criteria.