Sample Project Report Outline

SYST 542 SAMPLE PROJECT FINAL REPORT OUTLINE

Describe the decision problem and organizational environment within which you are building the DSS.
What benefit could decision support provide?
Who would be the users of a DSS?
Brief description of your project, including project scope, accomplishments, and evaluation results.

Describe the process you followed in designing, prototyping (and possibly building) your DSS.
Who are the users you worked with?
How did you obtain feedback from the users and how did you incorporate that feedback into your system redesign?
If you implemented a prototype with limited functionality, describe your approach to implementing a full-scale implementation.

Describe the system you developed. If your system is up on the web, include a url. If you have a demo that will run without third-party software, please include a floppy disk, a CD, or a URL for downloading.
Describe your system architecture with a level of formality appropriate to your system and to your level of knowledge.
The dialog system: Walk the user through the process of using the system. Refer to visuals included in appendix.
The data system: What data does your system need? What are the sources of data? How are data represented? Discuss compatibility issues. (If you build a functioning system, describe what you did, including tradeoffs you had to make. If you did storyboards, this section should be more of a requirements study.)
The model system: What models does your system use? Justify in terms of the problem the system needs to be solved. Discuss tradeoffs you had to make. (Again, describe what you did if you implemented; requirements if you did a storyboard.)

How did you evaluate your system?
Evaluation results
If your system was a prototype including only limited functionality, discuss your approach to evaluating a full-scale implementation.

Summary of your project. What did you learn? Do you still think your problem is a good candidate for decision support? What obstacles lie in the way of successful application of DSS to this problem? If you were going to continue this project after this semester, where would you go from here?

Hardcopies of screens.
Architecture diagrams (e.g., IDEF0; data flow; etc.)
Management report – Includes list of tasks, primary person and other contributors to each task, and group member consensus evaluations (see below).

Your grade on this project will be partly a group grade and partly an individual grade based on your self and peer evaluations.
Your team should rate each person on a 10-point scale. The rating scale is as follows:

10 (A) – Participated enthusiastically, exhibited strong leadership, attended regularly and was essential to meetings, performed tasks responsibly and on time, work was extremely high quality, took excellent initiative and was highly self-motivated.
9 (A-) – Good participation, attended and contributed to meetings, exhibited leadership, performed tasks responsibly and on time, work of dependable high quality, took good initiative and was self-motivated.
8 (B) – Adequate participation, usually attended and contributed to meetings, exhibited some leadership, performed tasks responsibly and usually on time, work of dependable good quality, took reasonable initiative and was reasonably self-motivated.
7 (C) or 6 (C-) – Participation could have been better, performed tasks when asked but may have been late and/or needed reminders, quality could have been better, needed guidance and usually did not take enough initiative.
5 or below – Participation was minimal or non-existent; any work that was turned in was of inadequate quality

Your evaluations should reflect a consensus of your group. A suggested process to follow is for each person to rate all group members (including him or herself) anonymously, and then collate the ratings and discuss them among yourselves. I am available to mediate any serious conflicts. If your group cannot reach consensus, I will listen to all sides and make my own evaluation, but there will be a penalty to your grade for not reaching consensus. There is no penalty for asking my advice or requesting that I serve as a mediator. The only penalty is if you cannot ultimately resolve the conflict on your own.
If the evaluations are not included in the final report, all team members will receive equal group grades, and there will be a penalty for not including a required part of the report.