Guidelines for Project Plan

• submission
  1. softcopy of plan with signature/approval via Canvas
  2. softcopy of plan (without signature) in pdf on your project web site
  3. softcopy of presentation in pdf (ppt) on your project web site

• length: at least 2 pages (single-spaced, 12-pt font, 1-in margins)
• content:
  1. Project title
  2. Names and email addresses of team members (CSE members first--this is a plan for the CSE contribution)
  3. Faculty advisor: name and email address
  4. Client: name and affiliation
  5. Date(s) of Meeting(s) with the Client for developing this Plan:
  6. Goal and motivation: Discuss the overall goal (help make the intended users "happier") and motivation (why are the intended users not too "happy"? limitations/pains of current systems)
  7. Approach (key features of the system): Discuss at least three key features/functionalities that your system provides for the users to help achieve the overall goal.
     (What can the intended users do?)
     (at least one paragraph for each feature, more specific less vague) [e.g. Similar to app descriptions at Google Play, **NOT** the underlying tools]
     For interdisciplinary/external projects: focus on (identify) separate CSE features/contributions
  8. Novel features/functionalities: Discuss which features/functionalities, if any, are novel and why.
  9. Algorithms and tools: potentially useful algorithms and software tools
  10. Technical Challenges: Discuss three main CSE-related challenges (for example, "we plan to use/do javascript for web programming, but we don't know much about javascript").
  11. Milestone 1 (Sep 30): itemized tasks:
      • Compare and select technical tools for A, B, C, ...
      • Provide small ("hello world") demo(s) to evaluate the tools for A, B, C, ...
      • Resolve technical challenges: X, Y, Z, ...
      • Compare and select collaboration tools for software development, documents/presentations, communication, task calendar
      • Create Requirement Document
      • Create Design Document
      • Create Test Plan
  12. Milestone 2 (Oct 28): itemized tasks:
      • Implement, test, and demo feature
      • Implement, test, and demo feature
      • ...
  13. Milestone 3 (Nov 25): itemized tasks:
      • Implement, test, and demo feature
      • Implement, test, and demo feature
      • ...
  14. Task matrix for Milestone 1 (teams with more than one person)

      Task	John	Mary	Mark
      Compare and select Technical Tools	web	mobile	visualization
      "hello world" demos	web	mobile	visualization
      Resolve Technical Challenges	Language X	Algorithm for Y	Algorithm for Z
      Compare and select Collaboration Tools	programs	documents/presentations	communication, task calendar
      Requirement Document	write 50%	write 25%	write 25%
      Design Document	write 25%	write 25%	write 50%
      Test Plan	write 25%	write 50%	write 25%

  15. Approval from Faculty Advisor
      • "I have discussed with the team and approve this project plan. I will evaluate the progress and assign a grade for each of the three milestones."
      • Signature: _______________________________ Date: ________

Second semester

• length: at least 3 pages (single-spaced, 12-pt font, 1-in margins)
• content:
  1. Project title
  2. Names and email addresses of team members (CSE members first--this is a plan for the CSE contribution)
  3. Faculty advisor: name and email address
  4. Client: name and affiliation
  5. Meeting(s) with the Client for developing this Plan: date(s)
  6. Goal and motivation: Discuss the overall goal (help make the intended users "happier") and motivation (why are the intended users not too "happy"? limitations/pains of current systems)
  7. Approach (key features of the system): Discuss at least three key features/functionalities that your system provides for the users to help achieve the overall goal.
     (what features does your system have that can help make the intended users "happier"?)
     (at least one paragraph for each feature, more specific less vague) [e.g. Similar to app descriptions at Google Play, **NOT** the underlying tools]
     For interdisciplinary projects: identify separate CSE features/contributions
  8. Algorithms and tools (libraries/api/frameworks/languages) for the key features: Discuss how and which algorithms and tools are used to achieve the features
  9. Novel features: Discuss which features/functionalities are novel and why.
  10. Technical Challenges: Discuss three main technical challenges for this semester (for example, "we plan to fird the shortest path from A to B, but don't know which algorithm to use.")
  11. Design: system architecture diagram
      • components/modules of the software system
      • interfacing with different types of users (if any)
      • interfacing with different hardware devices (if any)
  12. Evaluation: how to measure success? Some ideas:
      • speed (e.g. how fast does the system achieve each of its goals?
      • accuracy (e.g. how accurate is the system?)
      • reliability (e.g. out of 10 times, how many times does the system achieve each of its goals)
      • user survey (e.g. rating of 1-5 on each of the different features)
  13. Progress Summary:

      Module/feature	Completion %	To do
      GUI	50%	allowing drop down menus, mouse-over help messages...

  14. Milestone 4 (Sep 30): itemized tasks:
      • Implement, test, and demo which features/modules
      • ...
  15. Milestone 5 (Oct 28): itemized tasks:
      • Implement, test, and demo which features/modules
      • ...
      • Conduct evaluation and analyze results
      • Create poster for Senior Design Showcase
  16. Milestone 6 (Nov 25): itemized tasks:
      • Implement, test, and demo which features/modules
      • Test/demo of the entire system
      • Conduct evaluation and analyze results
      • Create user/developer manual
      • Create demo video
  17. Task matrix for Milestone 4 (teams with more than one person)

      Task	John	Mary	Mark
      1. implement, test & demo feature/module	100%	0%	0%
      2. implement, test & demo feature/module	0%	100%	0%
      3. implement, test & demo feature/module	0%	0%	100%

  18. Description (at least a few sentences) of each planned task for Milestone 4:
      • Task 1: ...

      • Task 2: ...

  19. Approval from Faculty Advisor
      • "I have discussed with the team and approve this project plan. I will evaluate the progress and assign a grade for each of the three milestones."
      • Signature: _______________________________ Date: ________