Project Workshops Project Planning 1

Project planning proper management is essential the responsibility of the student with the advice of supervisor management involves: –preparing a plan –monitoring progress against the plan –time planning: roughly 16 hours per week –basic, intermediate and advanced deliverables 2Project Planning

Planning Decomposition of the basic deliverable into a partially ordered network of components, to help prioritise tasks and define ways of making initial rapid progress. Consider time management to allow you to schedule your activities in Term 1 and to raise any foreseeable problems with supervisors. 3Project Planning

Planning Your Project Identify the key tasks involved in your basic deliverables Order on those tasks and any new skills you think you will need to do the project successfully. Use GANTT or PERT charts Important, in each case to state the project goals and what your basic deliverable entails – start with the project description from your supervisor 4Project Planning

Planning Your Project Plan regular meetings with your supervisor at least once a week Concentrate on planning for the basic deliverable to get a clear plan for tackling that over the next 3 months. Plan to re-plan later on as your project progresses and you have a better understanding enabling you to predict how design choices made now will affect the later goals. 5Project Planning

Time Planning with Supervisor How often? Once a week for at least 30 minutes Keep track of the meetings on the Project Work forms that should be kept in your Project Log Get in contact in case of “problems” 6Project Planning

Self Organisation How many hours in which week? - 16 on average Depending on lectures, assessments, etc. Depending on music events, beer festivals, etc. Unforeseen events can happen!! - allow for some extra time planned towards the end; 7Project Planning

Time Planning Soft deadlines / hard deadlines (throughout the project for each phase, deliverable, assessment) Use charts or diagrams to visualize tasks/time, since they are easier to read than a diary 8Project Planning

Plan Time for Revisions (suggested by supervisor; after testing/evaluation) Testing or evaluating the design, implementation, algorithms Draft versions of report writing - start in time (yesterday) Basic, intermediate and advanced deliverables 9Project Planning

Plan Time for Reflections and adapting the plan Unforeseen, e.g. additional reading, adapting software tools 10Project Planning

Deliverables Use the project description as a starting point Relate the deliverables to the objectives Discuss the feasibility with your supervisor 11Project Planning

Levels of Deliverables Basic deliverables –Related to minimum objectives –Turned into a part of the design or a piece of code –With a basic level of functionality –If this is delivered at the end and everything else is okay, it means just passed (depending on the weighing of parts) 12Project Planning

Levels of Deliverables Intermediate / Advanced deliverables –Related to intermediate / advanced objectives –Further refinement / Fair deal of evaluation, testing etc. –More / almost all of the functionality (but realistic!) –If this is delivered and the rest is very good / excellent, it distinguishes between class 2.1 and 1 13Project Planning

Further Details Chapters on Project Planning in books ASE Lecture on Planning 14Project Planning

Summary Take note of these workshops and the documentation as failure to do so in the past has resulted in students attaining very poor marks and even failing completely Start early. Put in enough work. If you do not do enough, you will fail. 15Project Planning