The goal of this exercise is to help you learn the superstructure for proposals.
The Exercise
Complete the Revision Checklist for Proposals as you examine the report below.
Exercise 22.1 presents a proposal, and the writer of this proposal is a manager in the IS department of a worldwide hotel chain. She is requesting assistance from outside the company to revamp the help system for the company's room reservation system. She has three reasons for her request:
In order to become familiar with the superstructure of proposals, as presented in Chapter 21, students are asked to examine the proposal and answer the prompts in the superstructure worksheet, which is found at the bottom of the exercise.
The Proposal
JEWEL HOTELS, INC.
Information Systems Division
CORPORATE MEMORANDUM
TO: Michelle Wrightwood, Vice President, Corporate Systems
FROM: Carmen Sanco
DATE: March 19, 20XX
RE: Proposal to Update Jewel Hotels' RCB Help System
During the past five years, the Information Systems Division has continually worked to improve the company's Reservation, Check-in, and Billing (RCB) system. One area that has gone virtually untouched since the system was created is the on-line help system. In order to provide real value to front-desk personnel, the help system must be redesigned and updated. I am asking for your support to invest the necessary personnel resources to this important task.
Overview of Current System
Jewel Hotels has been very successful in creating a room reservation system that is both powerful and flexible. Since our department introduced the system five years ago, it has undergone some major rework and enhancements to keep pace with Jewel's expansion throughout the world. We are currently working on version 4.0 of the system.
One of the areas of RCB that has not kept pace with the rest of the system enhancements is the on-line help system. When the first version of RCB was released, the on-line help feature proved to be valuable to users learning the system for the first time. Upon each subsequent release, however, updating of the help text took a low priority and ultimately was lost in the rush to release the new system. New employees became upset when they tried to perform a task described in the help text, only to receive further error messages. With the help system so severely out of date, we took it off line 16 months ago to examine it and make improvements.
Components of the New On-Line Help System
The IS Department proposes to introduce an improved and updated version of the help system to coincide with the RCB 4.0 release. The new system will include: