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516 19 Writing Recommendation Reports

identify the Problem or opportunity

What is not working or is not working as well as it might? What situation
presents an opportunity to decrease costs or improve the quality of a product
or service? Without a clear statement of your problem or opportunity, you
cannot plan your research.
For example, your company has found that employees who smoke are
absent and ill more often than those who don’t smoke. Your supervisor has
asked you to investigate whether the company should offer a free smoking-
cessation program. The company can offer the program only if the company’s
insurance carrier will pay for it. The first thing you need to do is talk with the
insurance agent; if the insurance carrier will pay for the program, you can
proceed with your investigation. If the agent says no, you have to determine
whether another insurance carrier offers better coverage or whether there is
some other way to encourage employees to stop smoking.

establish criteria for Responding to the Problem
or opportunity
in this book Criteria are standards against which you measure your options. Criteria can
For more about establishing be classified into two categories: necessary and desirable. For example, if you
criteria, see Ch. 7, p. 162. want to buy a photocopier for your business, necessary criteria might be that
each copy cost less than two cents to produce and that the photocopier be
able to handle oversized documents. If the photocopier doesn’t fulfill those
two criteria, you will not consider it further. By contrast, desirable criteria
might include that the photocopier do double-sided copying and stapling.
Desirable criteria let you make distinctions among a variety of similar ob-
jects, objectives, actions, or effects. If a photocopier does not fulfill a desirable
criterion, you will still consider it, although it will be less attractive.
Until you can establish your criteria, you don’t know what your options
are. Sometimes you are given your criteria: your supervisor tells you how
much money you can spend, for instance, and that figure becomes one of
your necessary criteria. Other times, you derive your criteria from your
research.

determine the options
After you establish your criteria, you determine your options. Options are po-
tential courses of action you can take in responding to a problem or opportu-
nity. Determining your options might be simple or complicated.
Sometimes your options are presented to you. For instance, your supervi-
sor asks you to study two vendors for accounting services and recommend
one of them. The options are Vendor A or Vendor B. That’s simple.
In other cases, you have to consider a series of options. For example, your
department’s photocopier is old and breaking down. Your first decision is

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