[MUSIC] Hello again, since you're watching this video, that means you are two-thirds of the way through your Capstone project. Which deserves congratulations. But there is important work ahead in order to finish strongly. So far, you've developed an Action Plan that applies your financial knowledge in the real world and you've also helped your colleagues with their projects by providing peer feedback on their action plans. Now, only one stage of your work remains. So today, you begin the process of presenting your action plan to a relevent stakeholder. A stakeholder is someone with a direct connection to the issue or problem that you're planning to address. In other words, he or she is an expert. And for our purposes, this is a person who can help you determine your proposed action plan is feasible and if it's likely to make the difference that you expect. Now, your stakeholder might be a community leader, might be a local politician, a financial professional, or maybe an official at a not-for-profit organization. But it could be anyone with knowledge and interest in your project area, who can provide an informed and valuable perspective on your action plan. So your first step in Stage 3 is to find that stakeholder and arrange a meeting to discuss your action plan. You should do your best to schedule your meeting during week six of this Capstone course since the subsequent steps depend on that meeting. To help you in this process, you will find a list of stakeholder suggestions and resources in the course readings for this week. And in part two of this week's video lecture, I will provide some advice on preparing for your stakeholder presentation. But for now, let's talk about identifying a stakeholder. So how do you select a good stakeholder for your discussion? Well, before you start, make sure you read and consider the peer feedback on your action plan. This will give you some insight into the kind of stakeholder who will help you the most for this purpose. Next, use the stakeholder conversation discussion forum to share ideas about possible stakeholder candidates, and what you hope to get from your stakeholder meeting. These sorts of informal interactions with your colleagues, we're going to help you to think through why you've chosen the stakeholder that you have. And we'll also help you to think about the types of questions that you want to ask. So, once you are prepared to talk with your stakeholder, you need to do the most important thing, choose your stakeholder and arrange a meeting. Now luckily, you already have a list of potential stakeholders from the Problem Statement portion of this Capstone. So go back to that list and pick your best prospect. Meaning, the person who's most likely to be both helpful and available. Then, you need to reach out to them by phone or email, social media, whatever method is best for you, and schedule a time to meet them. Since you're asking them to give you some of the most valuable time, try to be as flexible as possible when it comes to arranging the discussion. In other words, put yourself at their disposal. Now as I've said, we'll talk about the meeting itself in the next video. But for now, let's focus on the assignments connected to this part of the Capstone. The first assignment is the Feedback Synthesis and Implementation Plan. Which is the third and final peer reviewed component of the Capstone. This component itself has two parts. The first part is the pre-presentation. Here you're going to outline how you will be preparing for and executing your stakeholder discussion. In particular, you'll describe the stakeholder and explain why you chose that person. How they are connected to the issue addressed by your action plan. And how you intend to approach the discussion. The ways you will try to communicate your plan, for example, by phone, by Powerpoint presentation, or some other approach. And finally, why you think that approach is going to serve you best. You also need to prepare at least 3 key questions for your stakeholder. Then after your stakeholder conversation, you need to complete the second part. The post-presentation assignment, where you'll think critically about the takeaways from your discussion and how you might incorporate them into your action plan. Here, you'll briefly describe how the presentation went, and then outline the three most useful points from the discussion and describe how you'll adapt your action plan to address those points. Now please don't worry, you don't have to rewrite the action plan. You just need to describe some of the changes you would make based on the feedback from the stakeholder. Finally, you will briefly outline some concrete steps you plan to take to begin implementing your action plan. After all the work you've put in, you don't want your action plan to be all plan, and no action. And remember, this is a peer reviewed assessment, so you need to make sure to submit it but the end of week 7 to give your colleagues enough time to comment before the end of the Capstone course. That is the end of week 7. So that will complete the Feedback Synthesis and Implementation Plan, and bring you almost to the end of Capstone project. All that will remain is a few minor tasks. First, to provide constructive peer feedback on your colleagues' synthesis and implementation plans. Then, second, you'll watch the final video lecture, which provides a wrap-up of the full Finance for Everyone specialization. And third, you will post a final entry in the Looking Forward discussion forum in which you will share how you hope to leverage what you've learned in Finance for Everyone. And how it will make a difference in your life and in the lives of those that you serve. And with that, you will have completed the specialization and it will be time for you to put your newly acquired financial knowledge to work in making a difference, because finance for everyone is about so much more than money. It's about understanding and taking control of some of the many forces that shape your life and the world around you.
