This lab will be different. Your only task is to create a single page* document called an executive summary. An executive summary simply summarizes a report. Some would say it’s an executive summary because it allows executives to not have to read the entire report, but that would be pessimistic. 🙂 You could also consider it an executive summary because it summarizes the execution of a plan, and that’s a great way keep in mind what it should do. You need to create a single page report on why your hypothetical organization needs a security policy, and this executive summary should do two things:

1) Allow an executive that has to approve your plan to understand why it’s so important without having to understand all the things you learned over the course of the semester. You have to let them know enough to convince them without burying them in details. This is why Chapter 12 is helpful in framing the ‘why’.

2) You have to let them know how you’re going to do it with a broad outline of the structure of the Security Policy and who and how it applies to in the organization. These are the logistics behind the “who/what/where/when/how” elements all executives have to reconcile to the larger organizational issues they are responsible for.

The document should be one page with standard margins, single spaced, and well formatted. Your instructor reserves the right to determine any specific elements they wish you to follow in this assignment.

*Why is it a single page? Partly because you rarely have a lot of time to convince an executive of the technical importance of what you do before they feel overwhelmed by the ‘techie’ factor. The other part is because this is a skill you must develop; beyond your technical skills, some of the most important and valuable skills you have are ‘soft skills’ which are ironically ‘hard’ to find for employers and ‘hard’ to master for employees. Being able to succinctly explain technical issues to the people in charge without resorting to “trust me” is a very marketable skill