Project: Initial Plan Template

These are the components you should prepare before meeting your potential supervisor. This is to be filled regardless
of whether you CHOSE a topic or are trying to propose one.

Components Description/Guide
1. Project Title (10 words or less) 1. Should be easily understood, i.e. use simple English as far as
possible.
2. The title shouldn’t try to be smart or funny but encapsulates
the project, i.e. the reader should have an idea what the
project is about from the title alone.
2. Project description 1. Give further details about the project, i.e.
a. What problem the project is trying to solve or what
is it you want to find out
b. Why that problem needs solving or why do you need
to find out what you want to find out (i.e. the
significance of carrying out your investigation)
c. How you plan to go about solving it or finding out,
etc.
2. This needs to be short (100-150 words). A good guide is
about 1 sentence for each of the above-mentioned points (or
any other you may have.
3. Project purpose 1. What do you aim to achieve in this or through this project?
2. Why do you want to do this project?
3. How is it significant?

While you may have answered some of these questions in the project
description, here, you have the chance to further elaborate on the
project. Knowing the purpose of the project allows you to understand
what is important in the project, what you are trying to achieve and
why.
4. Project scope 1. What is the area covered by the project or investigation?
a) Coverage description 2. What are the results of your project? What can you produce?
b) Requirements (or expected to produce)
3. What you expect to produce is typically expressed as
requirements.
Example 1:
To produce: A database able to serve 300 concurrent clients
doing CRUD operations with a 3 sec maximum response
time.
Stated as a requirement: To setup and configure a database
able to serve 300 concurrent clients doing CRUD
operations with a 3 sec maximum response time.
(and yes, your requirements (and by extension what you
expect to produce) should be sufficiently detailed to know
what is included/important and what is not)

Example 2:
To produce: Cyberbullying in Highschool: A study on
students' behaviour.
Stated as a requirement: What would be your sample/target
participants? How large your scope will cover? Can your
result be generalized through graph, statistics figures and
chart to justify your findings.

How are you going to do it? – that is the next part of your
plan.
5. List of activities, milestones, timeframe 1. List down what you know or project that you need to do.
2. State any milestones, i.e. points of significant achievements
for the project.
3. Fill up the timeframe table by first listing the activities in
detail. This needs to be as detail as possible otherwise, you
make not account for tasks that are necessary.
4. Shade the appropriate table cells for each task/activity. How
do you know how much time each activity or task will take?
a. best to think of each activity in terms of the number
of hours you will need to complete it.
b. determine how many hours you need to (or are
going to) work on the project each week. Please
consider the other subjects you will be taking at the
same time and the demands of said subject.
c. Example:
Task: Develop User Interface.
Time 16 hours.
If you work 8 hours a week, you will need 2 weeks
to complete this task. If you work 4 hours a week,
you will need 4.
d. Students taking the Diploma FYP will only have one
semester (maximum of 14 weeks).
5. Don’t forget to consider your submission deadlines in your
plan.
 Week
IT Project 1 IT Project 2
Activities / Tasks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28