| Course | MT299 Associate's Capstone in Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Project proposal memo |
| Length | About 750 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT299 Unit 2
One Shop, One Question, One Number: A Unit 2 Project Proposal on Flower Waste at Hartwell Florist
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT299: Associate's Capstone in Management
Unit 2 Project Proposal
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Hartwell Florist, its people, figures and agreements are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
To: Course Instructor; copy to the owner, Hartwell Florist From: Student Re: Capstone project proposal
Organization, Question and Target
The project will study Hartwell Florist, a family-owned flower shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The question is how the shop can reduce the share of fresh-cut flowers it throws away without turning away customers. The target is to reduce discarded stems from about 22 percent of fresh purchases, measured by cost, to near 13 percent within three months of implementing a change.
The 22 percent figure is the owner's estimate from watching the compost bin; the first task of the project is to measure it. Saunders et al. (2019) note that a project's measures should be defined before data collection begins, so the target and the way discards are counted are fixed here.
The project succeeds or fails on one percentage, so that percentage is defined before anything is counted.
Scope
Included: fresh-cut stems bought from the shop's wholesaler, delivered on Mondays and Thursdays
Excluded: potted plants, dried goods and wedding and event flowers bought for a specific order, which are rarely wasted because they are bought to a count
Data
The owner has agreed to share twelve months of wholesaler invoices, showing every stem bought by type and price, and point-of-sale reports by category, showing sales of arrangements, walk-in bunches, sympathy work and website orders. She has not agreed to share the shop's profit and loss statement, which the project does not need.
The student will create one new source: a four-week discard log, recording every stem thrown away by type, by the delivery it came from and by the reason, wilted, damaged or broken. The lead designer has agreed to help keep it.
Method
The project will proceed in three steps. First, measure: the discard log will give the actual share of purchases thrown away, by stem type and delivery day, and the invoices and sales reports will show how buying and selling have changed over the year. Second, diagnose: comparing what is bought with what sells, day by day, will show whether waste comes mostly from ordering too much, from storage that shortens flowers' life or from both. Third, choose: options will be screened, priced and planned with the owner. The method keeps the measurement and the diagnosis separate, so that the options answer the causes the data show rather than the causes anyone assumed.
Deliverables for the Owner
By the close of the term, the owner should hold three things: an accurate measure of waste she can repeat any month, a costed change she has approved, and a plan with named owners for carrying it out. The 13 percent target will be measured after the term, when the change has run long enough to judge.
Timeline
Unit 3: organization profile
Unit 4: problem statement, using the first two weeks of the discard log
Unit 5: research summary, with the full four-week log, invoices, sales reports and outside guidance
Unit 6: seminar presentation of the emerging plan
Unit 7: options analysis
Unit 8: cost and benefit case
Unit 9: implementation plan
Unit 10: final report to the owner
Earlier Coursework
The project will draw on three earlier courses. Operations management covers perishable inventory and par levels, the target quantity to have on hand at the start of each period (Heizer et al., 2020). Managerial accounting supplies the split between fixed and variable costs needed to price options. And the research methods course supplies the approach to designing the discard log so that it measures what it claims to.
Risks
Mother's Day may fall inside the term. In that week the shop buys several times its normal volume, and discards behave differently, so a log kept that week would distort the average. The log will be kept in the four weeks before the holiday, and any change will be implemented after it. A second risk is that the lead designer may not have time to record every discard on busy days; the log form will be a single page kept on the design room counter, with a column for initials. Larson and Gray (2021) recommend naming such risks in a proposal so the sponsor understands them before work begins.
References
Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2020). Operations management: Sustainability and supply chain management (13th ed.). Pearson.
Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2021). Project management: The managerial process (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2019). Research methods for business students (8th ed.). Pearson.
Reading the MT 299 Unit 2 instructions
The second unit turns the chosen question into a plan the instructor can approve. Prompts generally ask for the organization, the problem or opportunity, a measurable goal, the scope, the data sources and how they will be reached, the method and a schedule mapped to the coming units. Many sections also want the earlier courses the project will draw on and the risks that could stop it. The proposal is a commitment document, so instructors read it for what is promised: a target someone can check at the end, data the student can actually obtain and a scope that fits ten weeks. A memo addressed to the instructor, sometimes copied to the sponsor at the organization, is the usual format. Two to four pages with headings, plus a short timeline, cover what most rubrics list, and citations from the research methods and project management texts are common.
How the MT 299 Unit 2 example is put together
Hartwell's memo opens with three commitments in one section: the shop, the waste question and a target of about 13 percent discarded cost. It labels the 22 percent baseline as the owner's estimate and makes measuring it the first task, citing Saunders and colleagues on fixing measures before data collection. Scope is drawn by product, keeping wholesaler stems and leaving out event flowers bought for a specific order. A data section separates what the owner will share, invoices and point-of-sale reports, from what the student will create, a daily discard log with a column for initials. The method moves from measuring to diagnosing to choosing, so options answer causes the data reveal. A deliverables section names three things the owner keeps. The timeline gives each later unit one line, and the risk paragraph moves the log ahead of Mother's Day. Margin notes mark the target, the data split and the owner deliverables.
MT299 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Proposal rubrics in this capstone tend to reward clarity of purpose, feasibility and planning. The goal statement carries real weight: a figure, a date and a way of measuring it score far better than a phrase like improve operations. Feasibility marks go to proposals that name each data source and confirm access, since an instructor cannot approve a plan that depends on records the student may never see. Scope earns credit when it draws a line, naming the products or sites left out alongside those kept in. The method and timeline are read together, and graders check that each later assignment has a place in the schedule. Integration of earlier coursework is a criterion in many sections, scored higher when each course is tied to the work it will support. Risks named with a response show maturity. Writing quality and APA references for the cited texts complete the criteria, and a memo layout with clear headings helps every one of them.
MT299 Unit 2 help from the desk
The weakest proposals promise a goal no one could check, such as better inventory control, and then cannot show success in the final report. Another frequent problem is assuming access: a plan built on payroll or profit figures the owner never agreed to release collapses by the research unit. Some students describe the method only as research and analysis, which tells the instructor nothing about what will be counted or compared. Timelines that ignore busy seasons at the organization cause trouble later, because data gathered in an unusual week distorts the baseline. Listing earlier courses by title without saying what each contributes misses the integration marks. If your goal is still a phrase, try turning it into a percentage or a count with a month attached, then ask the sponsor whether the records to measure it exist. Send that draft goal and your template, and a proposal can be built around them.
Get an MT299 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Tell us the organization you have settled on and the question you want to answer, then attach the proposal template or instructions and the rubric. The custom proposal fixes scope, access and a measurable target for that business and schedules each remaining unit. It comes back within 24-48h, and the first costs you nothing. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT299 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
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- MT299 Unit 3: Organization Profile
- MT299 Unit 4: Problem Statement
- MT299 Unit 5: Research Summary
- MT299 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- MT299 Unit 7: Options Analysis
- MT299 Unit 8: Cost and Benefit Case
- MT299 Unit 9: Implementation Plan
- MT299 Unit 10: Capstone Report
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MT299 Unit 2 questions, answered
What if the owner will not share financial figures?
Proposals can rely on operating records instead, such as counts, times, orders or logs you create yourself, and those often suit an associate capstone better anyway. Where money matters, a figure can be estimated from public prices and labeled as an estimate. Confirm in the proposal exactly what you can access, so the plan never depends on data you may not receive.
How specific should the success measure be?
Specific enough that someone could tell at the end whether the project succeeded. A target percentage, a dollar amount, a turnaround time or a count all work. The figure can be revised once research shows what is realistic, and saying so in the proposal is fine. A measure like improve efficiency cannot be checked and weakens the whole plan.
Do I need to list the earlier courses I will use?
Many MT299 rubrics include an integration criterion, so naming them helps, but tie each course to the unit where it will be applied rather than listing titles. A line saying cost behavior from managerial accounting will support the cost comparison in Unit 8 shows intent more clearly than any recap of what each course covered.
Where can I find a free MT299 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries the full MT299 Unit 2 project proposal memo. It commits a composite florist's waste project to a 13 percent target, lists the shared records and the discard log, schedules Units 3 through 10 and names the Mother's Day risk.
Why does the MT299 Unit 2 proposal leave out wedding flowers?
Event and wedding stems are bought for a specific order and counted out exactly, so they rarely end up in the compost bin. Including them would dilute the measure, so the proposal limits scope to the regular Monday and Thursday wholesaler stems.