CO:Project 4 curriculum/Report

From The Collaboratory

Contents 1 Purpose 2 Requirements Summary 3 Audience 3.1 The Client 3.2 The Communications Group 4 Content 5 Professionalism 6 Examples 7 Schedule 8 Dissementation

Purpose

The final IPC report serves three important functions. First, it documents your project in an organized way, consolidating important information into your own single professional reference. Second, it disseminates information externally by sharing your work with your client and others who are interested. Third, it serves as an internal reporting tool, providing information for planning of future students and assessment by your advisor.

The purpose of this report is not to provide comprehensive documentation of your project; the wiki, the file server, and other means are more suitable to that. However, this report should provide a complete overview of your project as well as explain where to find comprehensive documentation.

Requirements Summary

1. Each project with at least one current Project 4 member must turn in a final project report. Only one report is required per project.
2. The project report should provide a complete overview of the project, including all sections mentioned below.
3. The project report should be professionally written and formatted.
4. The project report is due by the end of the semester.

Audience

When writing your final report, consider two primary audiences: the client and the Communications group. These audiences have different needs, and your report will need to cater to both.

The Client

Your final report is your opportunity to communicate the status and/or outcomes of your project to your client in a clear, concise manner. The client's primary needs are to understand the current status of the project and how the client's need will be met. Schedule (particularly if it is late) is also very important to the client. Remember that your client may not be familiar with all technical aspects of the project, so you should make an effort to clearly explain all technical material in an understandable way. In addition, keep in mind that the client does not need to know all the details. Tell the client the most important information and save the details for appendices.

The Communications Group

Your second audience is the Communications Group, particularly your peers who will take over the project after you. Your advisor is also part of this second audience. As an audience, the Communications Group's primary need is to understand what has been done and where you left off. That way, next year the project team can effectively pick the project back up and continue it with a minimum of wasted time and effort. The Communications Group needs to see a thorough explanation of the project plan and the current project status. However, technical details aren't critical in the body of the report; put them in the appendices.

Content

Please use the following as a general outline for your report. Deviations from this outline in naming or order are acceptable as long as all the appropriate sections are present and logically organized. Where appropriate, the material for this report may be drawn from other sources, such as wiki project planning articles or past reports.

Abstract

A one paragraph summary of the entire report

1. Introduction

   In a clear, concise manner, describe the need being met, introduce the project's proposed solution for the need, and briefly state the progress to date.

2. Background

   In this section, elaborate further on the client's need. Two sub-sections which may be helpful to include are context and technical.

   1. Context

      Describe the sociopolitical, cultural, economic, and other contexts which are relevant to the need. How do these contexts impact the project?

   2. Technical

      Describe the technical background for the project. Include a summary of relevant research, including key information yielded by a literature review. (You may wish to include a complete literature review, if available, as an appendix.) Discuss with broad strokes technical challenges and the current state of the art. Reference appendices or external sources as necessary.

3. Narrative

   Provide a detailed narrative of the progress of your project over the past year. What work was accomplished? What were the key findings? What goal(s) did you meet? What were you not able to meet? What challenges did you overcome? What changed? What lessons did you learn?

4. Project Plan

   Discuss your project plan. Include both the current status of the plan and the original (beginning of year) plan. Reference your project planning article and other sources, as necessary. Identify key factors which affected the project plan. This section provides the meat of the material which next year's team will need in order to adequately continue the project. If the project is not continuing, it provides a space for lessons learned which other projects can use to improve their own planning processes.

   1. Phase Analysis

      Discuss which project phase or phases your project is currently in, which are already complete, and which will come next. Discuss the implications of these phases on the project plan.

   2. Schedule

      Provide the schedule for your project. Discuss whether or not you are on schedule as well as any changes to the schedule. Describe the impact of unforeseen events, if any, on the schedule. (Include any timelines or Gantt Charts as appendices.)

   3. Resource Analysis

      Describe the current and future resource needs of your project. Discuss how those needs are being met or what will be needed in the future to meet them. Discuss implications for your project plan.

   4. Budget

      Provide your project budget and current financial status. Provide a detailed cost breakdown and discuss any financial challenges.

5. Future work

   Provide a summary of the direction of the project in the future. What remains to be done? Is the current plan adequate to address the future work of the project? Tell those who come after you where to pick up.

6. Conclusion

   Wrap up your report. Restate the need and the proposed solution. Summarize the plan and any changes which have occurred. Is the project complete? If not, summarize again what remains to be done. Bring it all together here and fill in any last gaps.

Appendices

Include additional relevant information, such as charts, tables, technical drawings, manuals, photos, etc. Please, no copyrighted material in the appendices.

Professionalism

Your final project report should be professional in appearance and content. You should write professionally and format the document in a professional manner. The report should include:

• A formal title page
• An abstract
• A table of contents
• Consistent formatting with clear headings and sections
• Page numbers

There is no length requirement. Simply make the report long enough to adequately address all the above issues.

Examples

For examples of professionally written past senior design project reports, please see the Senior Design Project Database. Please note that the old senior design project format is substantially different from the new IPC report format. However, the old reports will still provide examples of professional writing style and the level of formatting and organization expected.

Schedule

A draft copy of the final project report is due April 26, 2010. Dr. Underwood will review the draft and return it with comments by May 3, 2010.

The final copy of the final project report is due at the final exam period (time TBD).

Dissementation

A copy of your final report will go to your project client. An electronic copy will also be posted on the web on our Department of Engineering website.