Exercise 3:

Now that you have arrived at a short list of possibilities to meet your needs, it’s time to define the make-or-break criteria which will decide between your options.

In a statement of 50-100 words

• Describe 3 more criteria—3 features, functions, qualities, capabilities, etc—in addition to those which you developed in Exercise 2 (file) which any of the options you are considering must have. For each criterion, explain why it is necessary, and why not having it would be a liability.

For illustrations of how to do this, see these sample recommendation reports (curated by David McMurrey):

♦ The section “Points of Comparison“ in Laptop Computers

♦ The first ¶ under “Comparison of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies” in Uninterruptible Power Supply Systems

♦ The first ¶ under “Comparisons” in Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems

Now it’s time to practice evaluating one of your possible solutions by all of your criteria, both the screening and selection criteria.

Exercise 4:

In a document of about 100-150 words, apply all of your criteria to one of the two options you identified in Exercise 3. Use the point-by-point approach discussed in § 7.5 of Last, et al., and also shown in Table 1 in this resource by Reardon, et al.

For additional illustrations of how to do this, see these sample recommendation reports (curated by David McMurrey):

♦ The section “Points of Comparison“ in Laptop Computers

♦ The first ¶ under “Comparison of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies” in Uninterruptible Power Supply Systems

♦ The first ¶ under “Comparisons” in Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems