CS486: Senior Capstone Design

Introductory Presentation Guidelines

Overview

In many organizations, you will need to pitch project ideas to a Vice President or Division Manager in order to get permission to even invest time pursueing a project. If you succeed in convincing this person, you will be tasked with "developing" the project idea; if you fail, it's back to your 6x8 cubicle to serve more time as a grunt on other people's projects.

For our purposes, we will use this introductory presentation as a way of introducing others in the class (and interested others from CET) to the Capstone projects we are doing this year. It will be your first chance to practice effective presentation of your project motivations, goals, and solution strategy.

Introducing your Project and Early Design

Imagine that you are working for some big consulting firm. In fact, this firm is so busy that only the best, most promising, most profitable projects get pursued. In your role as project solicitor, a client has contacted you to discuss a project. It sounds like a winner to you, so you and your team have put together a brief presentation that outlines the proposed project for the executive committee: you have 15 minutes to communicate:

1. who your team is.
2. who the client is, what their business is, what problem do they have. Make it sound compelling!
3. an overview of the solution your team has in mind, including initial architecture overview. Make us believe you have a really viable winner! This is like "setting the hook" --- after this we should be convinced it will work, and ready to listen to some details.
4. a more detailed review of the specific core requirements/functionalities required, which you have extracted after preliminary interviews with the client
5. a quick vision of how you see practical details: your proposed team composition/roles, overview your thoughts on architecture, rough milestones, project schedule.
6. a review of the main challenges/risks associated with the project. Should give management the impression that you're competent enough to have thought of obstacles, rather than being wet-behind-the-ears pups who have no idea what they're getting into.
7. Conclusion. Always important! Summarize your main points/highlights and end on an upbeat note!

Like any good advertisement, you want to close with a clear message of what you want: approval of your preliminary analysis and design, and executive permission to go forward with implementation. To be convincing, you should present a clear schedule of milestones and high-level tasks --- plus a timeline of deliverables leading to a proposal.

The executive committee is busy and impatient! Make sure your presentation is concise, clear, and focused. Do not go over your 15 minutes time slot!