Question

Choose an organization of your choice, write a Software Engineering project proposal informing them about the benefits of upgrading/changing their system or implementing a new system. The proposal should be a brief out line (about five A-4 size pages or 1500 words is the maximum limit) of your future work. It should be done according to group. The proposal must have the following headings:

Guidelines for SE Project Proposal

a) Title of the project (not more than 5-7 words)

b) Introduction and Statement about the problem (Problem Statement)

c) Why is the particular topic chosen?

d) What contribution would the project make and to whom

e) Objective and scope of the study

f) Methodology

g) Technologies

h) Hardware & Software requirement specification

i) Normalisation and Relationships of your Attributes

j) Work Plan

k) References

Answer 1

Let me guide you on how to develop a SE project proposal . You have to prepare it based on my suggestions and guidance below

a )Title of the Project

   This should express the purpose of the entire software or system as a meaningful title if it is a new system. If it is an upgrade of the existing system, it should be in a logical way . For example, "Inventory Management system" can be a title for an organization that does not have any software system to manage inventory and managing manually . If your system is going to upgrade the desktop software system for Home appliances selling company and they want to make it online, the title can be "online Home Appliance store " .

b) Problem statement

• This section should explain the existing system with its current features or functionalities and the problems it faces which may be manual and needs to be automated
• If the current system is automated but has its disadvantages and drawbacks and what are requirements to upgrade it .
• In both the cases, give a sub title as "existing system" and describe it as explained above

c) Why is the particular topic chosen?

Briefly explain the reason for choosing the topic and how the system will be helpful to the organization . For example, the reason must justify how the solution will reduce the cost or time and improvise profit for the organization

d ) Objective and scope of the study

• Explain the organization objective to develop this system briefly as a paragraph emphasizing the goal , explaining the outcome or result of the software project which will be a product or service.
• Scope will be the tasks performed to deliver a product or service with clearly specified features.
• Scope of the study should have the boundaries of the proposed system which will capture the features based on the agreed requirements of the client if it is a service application. If it is the own product developed by the organization, it represent the features defined by the product owner.
• Scope has to provide the needs limited to budgeted cost and timeline . which means Scope will be within the cost and time constraints.
• Scope should contain
  • assumptions ( client may have given certain requirements which we assume will be needed later to product )
  • constraints (Resource, Cost and time schedule) which may affect the completion of the project
• Scope should describe what are all out of scope, which means features not specified by client and not agreed upon to be in the deliverables .
• It can contain Work Breakdown structure (WBS ) or Feature Breakdown Structure (FBS)

f) Methodology

This section should explain what methodology we are going to apply for the project management for the successful delivery of the product or service within the agreed cost and agreed timeline.

Waterfall model of approach is one type while agile methodology is another type. Agile methodology is the current approach for its agility

You have to specify the methodology and the tools you are going to use implement the methodology

Please avoid waterfall methodology which is time consuming and has drawbacks that after completion of the entire project for months and client feedback is bad , you have to change from start leading to loss of money and time.

Agile is more customer specific aiming for a business value and can improvise the product or service at early stages due to customer feedback on every delivery in every sprint.

If you choose agile, you will have sprints for a specific period and will deliver a module in each sprint to the client which is tested and ready to use. You have to specify your sprint period in this section

g) Technologies

• Identify the technologies needed for your topic
• If it is desktop application , please specify the technologies you are going to use to develop the system
• if the existing system is manual , you can decide any technology which will be cost effective or open source
• If the existing system is an automated and you have to upgrade features , please specify the technology which sis compatible to the existing automated system
• If you are going to develop online application or app from scratch to automate the manual system you can choose cost effective technology
• Java technology or .NET technology or PHP or Cloud based technologies depending on your project scope

h) Hardware & Software requirement specification

• Specify the Hardware requirements
  • Processor for systems used for developers and testers
  • RAM for systems used by developers and testers
  • internet connection broadband with a specific speed
  • Application server configurations
  • Database server configurations
  • Testing server configurations
  • Microphone , webcam
  • Speakers . headphones
• Specify Software Requirements
  • IDE(Integrated Development Environment tool to develop coding lie MS- Visual studio and its version
  • DBMS tools like oracle, or SQL server , MySQL
  • Documentation tools like Ms-Office, Google docs etc
  • Agile based project management tool
  • Communication tools like Skype or chatting apps
  • Operating system latest version
  • Anti virus software if needed
  • UML tools

i) Normalization and Relationships of your Attributes

This section should have

• Database design with normalization to 3NF or BCNF
• Conceptual schema diagram which has entities and relationships
• Logical Schema diagram which has entities, data types , primary key and foreign key relationships

j) Work Plan

It can contain briefly

• Activities or work item broken using WBS or features as product backlog items from FBS
• Cost estimation
• Duration in hours as part of time estimation or effort estimation
• Start date
• End Date
• Resource who got assigned to an activity
• Identify who are responsible
• Identify who are accountable
• Client contact Person

k) References

   References may contain related to the project research and development

• books and author details
• Web links