Your Project Proposal

Stop press!! – Six good projects Document management system for the university of Greenwich to meet the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. A website for an online consultation with children experiencing domestic violence. Develop a tracking tool for young offenders being passed through a number of agencies Setting up a website for an All Party parliamentary Group on Kashmir A pilot online befrienders network for victims and survivors of forced marriages A support website for a member of parliament. Must have good technical and personal skills for these projects. See Phil Clipsham (room 365) for more details

Basics A project proposal is the first important document that you will produce for your project It includes your plan of how you will go about your project It needs to be agreed by your supervisor Your supervisor should advise you of the level of your project using this document … but this advice is impossible if the proposal is too vague, generic, lacks specific objectives, hasn’t been properly researched

project proposals The project proposal demonstrates that: you have thought the proposed project through it is achievable in the time available it is of at the right academic level it is has the right content for your programme. It should be uploaded by Oct 30th

What you will need in your Proposal A Title, your Name and Programme A list of Key Words or Phrases A Brief outline of the Project (the Aim) Describe in half a page what you plan to achieve in your project; remember the basic breakdown into three tasks “What will I research”, “What will I build”, “How will I evaluate it”. A set of Objectives Break down your Project into smaller objectives

and … A list of lecture courses you have taken that are directly relevant Web Engineering … List all needed resources hardware, software, … Your references Useful books and journal articles. Critical success factors What are the critical activities, people or resources that can make or break your project ?

the Title and Keywords Your research and reading will help you identify a list of keywords that are directly relevant to your project e.g. Database integration, native XML databases, security, access control, hotel management systems …. Once you have a good keyword list you can easily construct a title by making use of the really important keywords

Brief outline or Project Aim Tell the story of the project in a concise logical way – think of how you would describe it to a friend over a coffee. Focus on the essentials of your project – those things that your project will deliver. Check back on this once you have written down your objectives (next …)

Objectives the SMART acronym reminds you that objectives must be: Specific – An Objective can't be vague – be specific Measurable - Define a method of measuring the objective so you know when it is achieved (phew!) Agreed-To/Achievable - you and your supervisor need to agree to the objective, and it also must be do-able Realistic/Rewarding - It must be a realistic objective, and it must make sense to do it Time-related - without a schedule and due date, it will just keep going, and going, and going... Courtesy Wikipedia

so … All your Objectives should have clear titles e.g. “Research current hotel management systems systems that attempt database integration” Objectives should all have deliverables, i.e. they can be measured – (how far have I got?) you will know when the objective is achieved because you will have the deliverable ready Objectives should be agreed with your supervisor (but you will do all the work ) Objectives should all contribute directly to your project and getting a good grade Objectives should all have a time schedule

split things up Anything complicated benefits from being split into smaller pieces; (divide and conquer). Your Research objective could split into background ideas, requirements analysis, problems, technology review, data gathering (e.g. on similar products, applications, sites) … Your Build objective could split into visual design, functional requirements, UML diagrams, implementation issues … Your Evaluate objective could split into testing, usability, security …

make sure that You choose sensible objectives use verbs like: to investigate, to study, to develop, to analyse and so on  “One objective is to read that ASP.Net book”. “Investigate use of ASP in “topic area” websites” Each objective or task must Have a set of known activities (e.g. using electronic databases, creating UML or code, testing …) Have a set of deliverables (e.g. the background section of the introduction chapter, a set of Use Case, a Class Diagram …) Once you have defined an objective, estimate how long it will take you to achieve it (i.e. have all the deliverables) Add all your timescales together into your Project Schedule.

the schedule A good proposal will include a schedule showing how all the individual objectives fit together and timescales add up A Gantt chart is a good way to do this If the total time is too long then you need to reduce the scope (how much you will do) of some of the time-consuming objectives

Aim = Sum of Objectives A project proposal should be consistent So look carefully at all your objectives and their deliverables When they are all complete you should have finished your project with something researched, built and evaluated. When you have completed all the objectives you should have achieved your Project Aim!

keep referring back Whenever you are uncertain as to whether something should or should not be included in the project, refer back to the Project Aim. Ask yourself whether a proposed activity supports the Project’s Aim. If it doesn’t then decide whether you really need it.

will this help me? Yes! For your project to have a high probability of a success, you must have produced a good proposal and have defined a good set of objectives identified how these objectives will be met made an assessment of the resources required to complete the project and have shown it to your supervisor

conclusion Work on your project proposal (outline + objectives + schedule) Show a draft to your supervisor and get his/her comments Upload it as a word document via the Project web pages by October 30th A plan can always be modified and improved, but always discuss changes with your supervisor Next week – writing up your research – data gathering, information, ideas etc