DRAFT Outline of a Sample SOS Project Feasibility Study Notebook[1]

 

  1. Front Page, with title of Project, participants, and table of contents (with page numbers).
  2. Project Overview  or Executive Summary (1 page max).  A summary of key points in the document.
  3. Project Vision & Objectives
    1. Project vision.  What problem the system is going to solve, including perhaps how the world will be different for your stakeholders with this system.  One should be able to infer from this statement who the system stakeholders and users are.
    2. Stakeholder characterization.  Who are the stakeholders, including users, of the proposed system.
    3. Project objectives.  A list or narrative that lays out the specific things your system will do to solve the problem outlined in (a).  Each objective should be briefly explained in 1-2 sentences. 
    4. Scope.  You can combine this with the project objectives.  Which of the objectives are essential to a first cut solution to the problem (minimal subset)?  Which are important (and expected)?  Which would be nice, but are likely not to be implemented this year.
    5. Risks.  What are the major risks to doing this system?  What are the risks to not doing the system?
  4. Project Plan. 
    1. Roles and responsibilities of project participants (include project sponsor and consultant(s) if any).
    2. What’s needed to carry out the project

                                                               i.      Skills or abilities needed, and an inventory of existing participant skills.  How you plan to acquire any needed additional concept learning, skills or abilities.

                                                             ii.      Resources needed.  (software, hardware, space, materials, travel, etc.)

    1. Major milestones of the project (with dates).
  1. Analysis/Requirements to Date.  Any additional analysis documents you might have at this point, e.g., glossary, workflows, use case diagrams, domain models, etc.
  2. Background Research.  What’s out there that is like (or already does) what it is you want to produce?  Who would use what you produce?  How would you get them to use it?  What’s out there that could be used to support what you want to do?
  3. Appendices.  Anything else you want to include, e.g., a preliminary team covenant, letters from a project sponsor or consultant.  Include as an Appendix a hard copy of your presentation slides.

 


[1] This draft results from our Tuesday afternoon session Week V, and are my notes of that session.  We might revise this over the next few weeks.  Individual project notebooks could differ from this outline if there were good reason for that.