Your team’s mission is to identify a problem or opportunity that you can address with a technology-based solution.
Over the course of the semester, you will develop a project plan and system design. You’ll present these for feedback at the midpoint and end of the semester and you’ll submit all of your plans and design. This document describes everything you’ll need to produce, but it represents the minimum requirements. Don’t do the minimum.
The Boundaries Do…
Your system can be “about” almost anything, but it needs to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. See the Project Ideas page to get started...
Be creative, make grand assumptions, but ground yourself in reality.
For example: A $100,000 seed fund from an ‘angel investor’ is a grand assumption. An 80% return on investment (ROI) and break even in 3 months is not reasonable.
Ask questions and state your assumptions. This is part of the process, not a flaw in the process. Expect ambiguity.
Try to find a problem/opportunity that exists in an area that is interesting or relevant to most of the team, so the project will be more enjoyable.
Do Not…
Your proposal shouldn’t be an extension or add-on to an existing system. It needs to be a standalone, somewhat original system.
Your primary audience should not be college students. Think outside your box. I do not want to see apps about:
The lack of parking in Clifton
The problems renting apartments in Clifton
Finding bars/rides to bars/good happy hours/the best beer in Clifton
Organizing homework, class notes, studying
Grocery shopping
Some Suggestions
Read through the instructions carefully before you start working each deliverable.
You will go back and make changes to documents. Set up a versioning system to track changes to each deliverable.
Two major forms of accountability exist in terms of team work. First, I want to know who did what. Either each document should somewhere specify the primary “owner”, or you should keep a log that details this information. Second, at the end of term, each team member will evaluate, in detail, every other team member. I use this assessment to weight grades. Keep this in mind.
Creativity, innovation, and enthusiasm go a long way in the grading process.
I am very particular about the professionalism and polish of your work. If you can't deal with the easy stuff (spelling, grammar, consistent formatting, headers, white space, etc.), how can I possibly trust that you can deal with the hard stuff?
You are producing business documents. Business documents tend to be short and present data and information. Use bullet points, lists, tables and summaries throughout your documents. Use formatting to draw attention to important information (i.e., bold, underline, font size change, etc.). Long paragraphs (the “Wall of Text”) are discouraged. TLDR.