FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS

Your final written paper will be completed in two drafts. For your first draft, incorporate all comments and suggested edits from your outline. I will mark your first draft on Canvas using the same rubric I will use for the final draft. For the final draft, be sure you incorporate all comments and suggested edits from your first draft review as well as your own set of revisions.
Final papers must be of sufficient length to adequately cover the required sections described below and should be not less than 20 pages excluding the cover page, table of contents, executive summary, glossary, and reference section. Note all references should use the current APA format for all citations in the text and for the formal reference section. Use Times New Roman font 12, 1” margins all round, and page numbers in the footer and section headers.

Main Objective

The focus of your strategic evaluation of your chosen PPP Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is a SWOT analysis of the public sector partner’s strategic plan. SWOT stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats”. SWOT analysis look at an organization’s strategic plan and evaluates each of these dimensions relative to each other. That is, strengths and weaknesses are considered internal to the organization and opportunities and threats are considered external to the organization. Note that your private sector partner in any PPP could be an industry, not just an organization, so it may not be possible to focus a SWOT analysis on a set of individual organizations each of which would likely have its own strategic plan.
The main idea of the SWOT analysis is to find out how the public sector partner in the PPP envisions and strategizes its relationship with the private sector to execute and sustain its security mission, shore up its identified weaknesses and mitigate its identified threats. Therefore, a SWOT of a public sector partner requires you to evaluate the overall strategic plan of the public sector partner, as well as any other more specific documentation the public sector partner has published that discusses its mission (or the part of its overall mission you’re focusing on). The SWOT is there to structure an evaluation of the public sector partner’s mission, security objectives and to identify its strengths, weaknesses internally, and to identify pertinent opportunities and threats it faces that could potentially inhibit or harm accomplishing its security mission.
Next, you’ll need to know considerable detail about the private sector partners’ capabilities to determine the degree to which they are able to help your public sector partner meet its mission(s), leverage opportunities the private sector partner provides and to mitigate threats to the public sector’s mission, and therefore to describe the strategic opportunities on which you base your set of SMART recommendations. As such, the SWOT analysis is key to your ability to evaluate the efficacy of the PPP and thereby allow you to create robust and SMART recommendations for the public sector partner.
Ultimately this process allows you to create a structured and strategically based critique of how well your public sector partner is meeting its security mission by working with private sector
partners as well as a set of SMART recommendations that could improve the both the public sector partner’s performance/efficiency/resilience as well as enhance the PPP overall.

Organize each draft of your final paper as follows:

1) Content Analysis (90 pts)
a) The nature and history of the public/private partnership (PPP) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is of interest (20 pts). Start with an introduction that overviews your project aims and the organization of your paper. Locate and obtain the public sector partner’s current strategic plan. Then, using their strategic plan, begin to detail and characterize the public sector’s partner. For the public sector partner, including their mission, and how their current strategic plan suggests (or states) they might achieve their mission with the aid of private sector partners – be sure to detail the strategic objectives in the public sector partner’s strategic plan. Then characterize the private sector partner(s) by including a thorough history and description of the public/private partnership (PPP). Realize that in many PPPs, the private sector partner could be an industry sector. Detail how the private sector partner(s) has historically integrated with or advanced the public sector partner’s security mission, and in turn, how the private sector partner(s) may benefit from the partnership with its public sector partner.
b) Role of the PPP Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is (30 pts). Provide thorough review of how the public sector agency’s security mission, and how its strategic plan advances, supports, or enhances US homeland or national security, security policy and/or strategy. Next, using class resources, characterize the security mission of the public sector partner as either wicked or tame and why. Be sure to apply the definition and characteristics of wicked problems from the readings to the security mission of your public sector partner. Then address the following: i. What risks to society is the public sector agency focused on reducing?
ii. Why is the private sector essential to the public sectors mission?
iii. What security threats become worse, and how, were the public sector partner NOT able to engage in a PPP to achieve their strategic security goals?
iv. How is security improved by involving, integrating, collaborating with the private sector?
v. How does a PPP help address the wicked components of the security issues your PPP are focused on?

c) SWOT Analysis of the PPP Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is (10 pts). In this section, you should plan to perform a SWOT analysis of the public sector’s strategic plan (see above description). That is, detail the public sector’s strengths (an organization’s internal capabilities, capacities, competencies), weaknesses (an organization’s internal deficiencies), opportunities (exist outside an organization) where the organization could capitalize and extend its security mission, and threats (threats are outside forces that if unchecked undermine or deteriorate an organization’s ability to execute its mission) that face the public sector partner and which could inhibit, or derail is from achieving its security

mission. Be sure to define all terms used, and to orient the reader as to what document your SWOT analysis is based on, and how you’ll use the SWOT analysis.
d) Recommendations & Conclusions (30 pts). This section should flow naturally from the SWOT analysis above. Leveraging the results of the SWOT analysis, offer a numbered (to indicate priority) set of recommendations as to what you suggest the public sector partner might do to improve its strategic plan. That is, develop strategic recommendations that are risk-based and that enhance the resilience of the private and public sector partners and that reduces the risk to society of the security issue and that are responsive to the wicked components of the security issues the PPP is focused on addressing. Professional recommendations need to be accountable. One way to integrate accountability into your recommendations is to be sure each recommendation is SMART. SMART recommendations are S-specific; M-measurable; A-achievable; R-realistic; T-time bounded. Your SMART recommendations should flow logically from your SWOT and security analyses above and focus on how the PPP might improve domestic security in a more sustainable, and resilient way.

Professional papers always offer conclusions (summary statements as to how the paper was generated and observations about the quality of the analysis, what was recommended and how the analysis might be improved, etc.).

2) Craftsmanship and Professionalism (50 pts)
a) A Cover Page (5 pts). A cover page should include your project’s title, the name of the organizations (i.e., partners) you are evaluating, and date completed, and your name, the course and the professor’s name. Also include, centered under your group names, the following: “A Strategic Evaluation of a Public/Private Partnership of {fill in the name of the public entity and private sector partners} in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for a Doctorate in Homeland Security, St John’s University”
b) An Executive Summary (10 pts). Executive summaries are typically written last, but is a full, yet brief description of what you did/studied, how you did it, and what you conclude including any policy, economic implications, timelines, or benchmarks. It comes after the cover page, before the table of contents and includes a brief version of your recommendations.
c) Table of Contents (5 pts). Tables of Contents should be well organized and represent all major and minor sections. Page numbers are to be right justified and you should use ellipsis tabs between the section header and the page number.
d) Writing Quality (10 pts). Each project must be impeccably written and organized, include 1” margins, be double spaced, use Times New Roman font 12, proper use of grammar, syntax and diction, use section headers, and data to support all claims/recommendations.

e) References (10 pts). It is critical to use references in the text appropriately (if it’s not your statistic, metaphor, simile, quote, etc., it needs a reference. Plan to include at least 10 professional references in the final draft, one of which is the strategic plan your group is evaluating. A complete reference section is required that correctly formats each reference in the text. I suggest single spacing the reference section with a 6 pts space between entries.
f) Glossary of Terms. (10 pts). A professional glossary has the correct terms or art used in your project, and presents definitions, if not examples, of each from reputable sources. I suggest single spacing the glossary section with a 6 pts space between entries. The glossary should be comprehensive and well thought out.

3) Instructor Impression (10 pts). Instructor’s discretion as to the overall project quality including its innovation, creativity, design, contribution, potential impact.