IABC Accreditation: Portfolio Work Plan
Statement of Objectives and Results (the work plan)
You must provide one detailed statement of objectives and results for each set of work samples in your portfolio. The statement of objectives and results represents two-thirds of your portfolio score and must be as complete as possible. Be sure to include the requested information for each section below. Each statement of objectives and results should contain the following information:
- Describe your organization and the communication function.
Briefly describe your organization’s business or function, history, location, size, number of employees, annual budget, etc. Include any other directly relevant information that will help the portfolio reviewers evaluate your work sample in context.
Also, briefly describe the communication function in your organization, including overall objective, history, number of employees, annual budget and your role in the organization when the project was executed.
- Identify the problem or opportunity.
Describe the problem or opportunity the project addressed. This includes the need or opportunity your project (or program) addressed, as well as target audiences in terms of size, location, opinions and other characteristics.
- Developing the solution or plan.
How did you approach the problem? Why and how was the plan developed? Describe the project’s objectives (which must be both time-bound and measurable) and how these objectives directly supported the overall objectives of your organization. Outline the budget and time schedule for producing the sample. Did you set these objectives and constraints, or were they imposed by other persons or outside circumstances?
- Selling the plan to management or the client.
Describe your overall approach in dealing with management and how you sold the plan to them. If the plan was brought to you or your communication organization by management, describe in detail how you worked with them to structure the project or to sell necessary changes to the original plan. This may include describing how you took management’s original plan, which wasn’t quite up to standard, and expanded it to maximize resources.
- Implementing the plan.
Describe in detail how the work was executed. What was your role in the project? What were the time and budget limitations? Did any problems arise? Did the plan, objectives, time schedule or budget change? If so, why? How were these changes incorporated into the process?
- Evaluate the plan.
How did you evaluate the effectiveness of the project and how well the messages were communicated? Does your evaluation directly reflect the original objectives established? If so, how? If not, why? What did the evaluation show? Cite formal and informal evaluation and any indications that the effort was effective in meeting its objectives.
Include your own evaluation of the sample, knowing what you know now. Were your objectives appropriate? Was the budget adequate? Was the timing correct? Was the audience targeted correctly? Was the choice of media right? What would you do differently, and why?
- Other information
Provide any additional information that the portfolio reviewers should know about your work samples to understand how they support your strategic objectives or caused specific outcomes, actions or results.
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