CISC 498 Information Technology Project
School of Computing		Project Plan

Overview

The goal of your project plan is to ensure that your project will be well-organized with clear understanding between group members as to how the group will operate. It should be two to three pages in length.

Structure

The project plan should contain the following sections:

Description of Probem	Describe the problem that your software is meant to solve. Describe the customer's current process. Describe the context of operation.
Group Logistics	Describe how your group will organize its cooperative work. What day(s), time and locations will you hold meetings? How else will you communicate (e.g., bulletin board, wiki?) Do any group members have constraints that will affect their work (e.g., travel commitments)? How will you work around these?
Access to Customer	Describe how you will interact with the customer. How often will you meet? When is your next scheduled meeting?
Milestones	Provide weekly milestones for the first term.

Milestones

Milestones should include concrete goals, allowing you to monitor your progress by determining whether the mileston has been reached. A poorly-phrased milestone might say "Work on requirements document." A more strongly phrased milestone might say "Meet with customer to discuss requirements. Document existing processes using text and activity diagrams. Produce simple low-fidelity prototype of possible system using paper and pencil to help elicit requirements." The latter phrasing not only has more detail, but also includes specific deliverables allowing you to determine whether you are on schedule or not.

Include your first term hand-ins and presentations in your milestones.

Milestones should be formatted as a table based on the following template and they should be conistenst with the dates and deliverables outlined in the "Details" page:

Id	Date	Milestone	Description
M1	See date in "Details" page	Contract	The project should be selected and agreement reached with the customer that the project is to proceed. A supervisor will have been found for the project. All parties will have signed the project contract, based on the form provided on the CISC 498 web site.
M2	See date in "Details" page	Intial project plan	A project plan will have been created based on the project plan guidelines provided on the CISC 498 web site.
mm	sometime	another milestone	More description