Planning and Executing Your Project

WORKBOOK

Creating the Plan for Your Project

Pre-Planning Stage:

1. DEFINE THE PROBLEM

1. 1. What is the problem we are solving or investigating?
2. 2. What does the faculty advisor and/or industrial consultant really want?
3. 3. Can we give them what they want in the time allocated or do we need to redefine the problem?

2. ANALYZE THE LITERATURE OBTAINED FROM YOUR SEARCH

1. 1. What theoretical concepts apply to our problem?
2. 2. What approaches in the literature can we use or adapt to help us solve our problem?
3. 3. What is the main technical approach we will use to find a solution to the problem?

3. INVESTIGATE THE SOLUTION OPTIONS

Brainstorm ideas about what results you wish to attain.

What kinds of results can you obtain?

 

Planning Stage:

1. FORM A MISSION STATEMENT

Brainstorm ideas for your mission statement.

Write your team’s Mission Statement here:

 

2. DEFINE THE SCOPE OF THE PROJECT (SCOPE STATEMENT)

The Mission Statement expresses what your team would ideally like to accomplish. The Scope Statement defines the boundaries. In the succeeding pages you will define the boundaries of your project and create a plan to accomplish the project. The boundaries may include the environmental constraints, cultural constraints, time constraints, technological constraints, structural constraints, effective leadership and communication, and anything else that might impact the project.

Scope planning should include experiment description, constraints, assumptions you’ve made, the tools you will use to accomplish the tasks, the culture, technology, individual competencies, and any other factors impacting upon the project. The project scope statement will also include justification, product description, anticipated project deliverables, and success criteria for the project. Justification for the project comes from your mission statement, but defines the problem you are being asked to solve more clearly. The product description is the statement of work to be done or the overall objective or solution. The project deliverables are a summary of the sub-products or goals. The project success criteria are specific accomplishments that allow you to determine how effective you are: “How will we know when we are done?” These can include both criteria for satisfying the team and criteria for satisfying the advisors.

The scope must also define your technical approach for reaching your stated objectives.

1. State how pertinent data will be obtained.
2. State the sequence of experiments that you will carry out.
3. Justify how your experiments will provide answers that satisfy your objectives.
4. What equipment materials and procedures you will use?
5. How will you analyze data?
6. Justify in your scope statement why you feel your analysis and method is feasible.
7. Are there uncertainties?
8. List decisions that need to be made (in chronological order) and how they are to be made.

Objective of Project

In order to create an appropriate scope statement break down your Mission Statement. Divide the team objective into two primary specific objectives: the team process objective and the task process objective.

Team Process Objectives:

Task Process Objectives:

1. What are the objectives?
2. You must justify these objectives in detail here.
3. Why does your research need to be done?
4. What previous relevant experimental and theoretical work has been done in this area?
5. What results can be expected from your work?

Create a Scope Statement for your new Project:

3. CREATE A WORK BREAKDOWN (STRUCTURAL ASSESSMENT)

List what you know about each of these categories and use the chart to break your goals down into tasks for each project:

Experiment:
Written Assignment:
Oral Presentation:

 

NEXT »» Work Breakdown Structure: Decomposing the Project »