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Ronan Fitzpatrick
School of Computing, Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street, Dublin 8, Ireland
Email: ronan.fitzpatrick@comp.dit.ie

Preparing for your project proposal and starting your project

You might find the following useful.

To get started on your project proposal you will need to gather your thoughts, so, you need to start (using PESTLE and W6h) addressing the following:

What is the title of the project? What the project is about? What is the attraction or your motivation for this project? Who will the project be of value to? What value will it have for them? What is the specific challenge (problem) of the project? How will your solution differ from existing solutions? Who else will the project be of interest to? What value will it have for them? How do you plan to do it?
What world experts you have consulted when researching the topics. What do you hope to deliver at the end of the project? (i.e., briefly describe all your project deliverables) What will the timescale be? What will you gain as a result of doing this project?
State what your project will NOT do.
These are topics that you should included in your Introduction Chapter of the project manual/dissertation (but use alternative suitable section headings for each topic). You should be imaginative with how you rename the section headings as this will give your readers confidence about the scholarship of your work. For the purpose of your project proposal you will be required to address some of the topics, so, the sooner you address them the better.

You might also write about

Any special knowledge or skills you already have that will convince your reader that you will successfully complete your project.

Any experimental work you have completed to date.
What you need to learn in order to complete your project.
Details of any special hardware or software you need to complete the project.
Enablers/inhibitors - the challenges that you have to overcome to deliver a successful project. This document could become the first chapter of your project manual or research dissertation, so, format it as per the "Crafting a research paper" guidelines. You'll probably discover that your document runs to about 10-15 pages if you craft it to the guidelines. When you've all that done you're ready to start. But, in the meanwhile, you will be able to use extracts from it when writing your project proposal.

This page was last updated 07 October 2008