IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 1 Discussion
Team Discussion: Prepare to Create the Team Charter
Review the Team Charter Template and review the team information provided in the second study of Unit 1. Then consider the following items and associated questions that are aligned with the sections of the Team Charter:
Commitments
What are my goals for the project and quality of work product?
What level of performance am I willing to commit to?
What course grade is important to me?
Team Meeting (Synchronous or Asynchronous) Ground Rules
How often, when and how will team members meet?
What is the code of behavior and interaction the team will follow?
How will team members conduct discussions and make decisions to ensure perspectives of all team members are engaged?
How will the team handle conflict or dissenting views among members?
What is the response time guarantee for team member input on issues?
Meeting Guidelines
Will meetings be synchronous (Zoom or another platform) or asynchronous (Unit Group/Team Discussion board, and so forth)? (For more information about Zoom, visit Using Zoom.)
Who will take notes and document decisions? Where will these be posted (Unit Group/Team Discussion area)?
Who will facilitate meetings?
Who will issue meeting agendas and minutes?
Meeting Procedure
Will there be a standard process for a meeting? (Review of minutes of last meeting, agenda items, new items, et cetera.)
If asynchronous, when are posts to the discussion required?
Who will review the meeting posts and summarize the meeting?
Team Roles and Responsibilities
Which responsibilities are shared by all team members?
What are the strengths of each team member? Technical, communication, project-related, and so forth)
How should team members be assigned different roles/responsibilities to leverage their strengths and contribute to project success?
Consider roles such as: project manager, team leader, meeting facilitator, documentation coordinator, point person for industry client/faculty communications, and so forth.
What specific project work should team members be responsible for or assigned to?
Initial Post
In your first post, jot down your input for each of the five areas listed above as your initial thoughts on what should be included in the Team Charter. You should consider your own perspective and what is important to you, and then consider how your ideas can meld with those of your team.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 1 Assignment
Develop a Team Charter
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 5: Function effectively as a member and leader of a team.
Team Charter Requirements
To support your work as a team member, as well as the success of your team, your first task is to work as a group to develop a team project charter. A Team Charter template is provided for you in the Resources section. In the Group/Team Discussion for Unit 1, you were asked to review questions related to each of the key areas of the Team Charter. You can begin the process of creating the charter by synthesizing these posts in each of the five areas of the charter: Commitments, Team Meeting Ground Rules, Meeting Guidelines, Meeting Procedures, and Team Roles and Responsibilities.
To successfully complete a Team Charter, you will need to hold a live meeting with your team to review and synthesize the group/team discussion results and complete the Team Charter. You may wish to specifically consider the following:
Discuss and document the team’s purpose, as well as define a common set of team goals.
Identify, as a group, what the team will do to achieve the goals.
Identify the talents, strengths, and challenges for individual team members, as well as the overall team strengths and challenges.
Identify strategies that will help overcome difficulties or challenges with team members and the project overall.
Discuss and document the agreements and commitments that members make to one another and to the team project.
Designate a project manager for the team.
See the Unit 1 first study for information on how to meet with your team using a live meeting space.
Based on the group/team discussion synthesis and review of additional content during the meeting, complete the Team Charter template. It is very important that each team member participate fully, and seriously consider the content of the Team Charter. The conversation and agreements that you reach, including the roles and responsibilities that you document in the charter, will become the guideline for helping assess your contributions to the project at end-of-term and in holding each other accountable.
After the Team Charter draft is complete and ready for submission to the courseroom, to formalize its acceptance and the agreement to abide by the terms specified, all members must sign the document (digital signing on a PDF is appropriate, as is printing, signing, and scanning back to PDF).
A Note on the Team Charter
The Team Charter is considered a “living document” and should be revised during the course if the team member roles and responsibilities change. Remember, the roles/responsibilities and commitments made in this the document will provide input to the instructor and be used to assess each team member’s performance, and the overall performance of the team.
Submission Requirements
Length: Fill out the Team Charter Template clearly and completely. Include a title page and references page.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
When your Team Charter is complete, submit it in the courseroom. This is not a deliverable that needs to be shared with the client.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 2 Assignment
Project Plan and Deliverables
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 5: Function effectively as a member and leader of a team.
Instructions
Now that you’ve had the opportunity to meet with your client and develop your charter, you’re ready to work with your team members to develop a project plan which clearly specifies the deliverables that will meet both the needs of your client and the needs of the course. Your plan will include project objectives, a SWOT analysis, project scope, a work breakdown structure that specifies responsibilities for each task, a project schedule, and a communication plan.
Use the Project Plan Template included in the Resources. Work with your team – through the group discussion board or online meetings – and the Project Plan Template to complete the following tasks to develop a project plan which will guide your work for the remainder of the project and course:
Identify project objective(s), course milestones, and client deliverables. Based on your initial meeting with your client, prepare a brief description of the project objective, course milestones and client deliverables. In addition, describe what the project will accomplish for the client or what benefit it will provide.
Complete a brief SWOT analysis based on the client meeting notes and research you conduct on your client. Your focus should be on gaining a better understanding of what will help make your project a success.
Define a clear, well-bounded project scope. Develop a very focused description of your project’s scope, following the guidelines in the Course Project Template. Your project should be very well-bounded and should reflect the expectations of what your client hopes to achieve with the project as well as what is and what is not to be included in the project. For example, if your project involves recommending a new software package to solve a problem for the client, you might include what problem the client hopes to solve with the software package, that it is in scope for the team to analyze different software and produce a recommendation that meets client needs, but it is not in scope to install the software or train client personnel.
Describe the work breakdown structure based on the project objectives, course milestones and client deliverables. Include all of the tasks that will be necessary to achieve the project objectives. Identify which team members will complete which tasks. Make sure you include as deliverables those expected by the client as well as the course milestones and tasks as listed below:
Week 1: Team Charter.
Week 2: Project Plan.
Weeks 3 & 4: Conduct Research and Investigate Options.
Week 5: Preliminary Solution/Recommendation with Justification.
Week 6: Potential legal, ethical, policy, social and global implications of proposed solution/recommendation..
Week 9: Presentation of Project Results to Client.
Week 10: Final Project Report.
Complete the communication plan as described in the Project Plan Template.
Create a time schedule that clearly shows who will complete each task in the work breakdown structure and when it will be completed. Your time schedule may require days as units, given the relatively short duration of the project. It should also account for adequate time for team members to provide input and feedback on work completed.
Create a project quality plan, that indicates how the team will ensure quality output in the form of deliverables, solutions, and recommendations.
Write an executive summary (described on first page of the Project Plan Template).
Please keep in mind that this project plan is a “living” document that should help guide your team’s work throughout the rest of the course. By clearly specifying due dates and responsibilities, you will help your team operate more efficiently.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
Submission Requirements
Citations and references: All resources should use current APA style and formatting.
Length: Fill out the Project Plan Template clearly and completely. Include a title page and references page.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
When your project plan is complete, submit it in the courseroom. This is not a deliverable that needs to be shared with the client unless the client requests it; although sharing the project plan may help the client understand how you will be approaching the project and give them confidence in the final results.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 5 Assignment
Preliminary IT Solutions or Recommendations
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 2: Design, implement, and evaluate computing solutions to meet stated requirements.
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 6: Identify, analyze, and incorporate user needs in the selection, creation, integration, evaluation, and administration of computing solutions.
Instructions
In Units 3 and 4, your team conducted research to further explore the client’s objectives or needs, discover what other organizations have done to meet these objectives or address these needs, and identify a set of possible solutions or recommendations. In this assignment, synthesize your findings and create a report in which you:
Summarize the project objective or need.
Briefly describe what other organizations have done to address these objectives or needs, and how it has worked out.
Present two or three alternative solutions/recommendations, and explain why they are viable.
Provide evidence-based justification for your solutions or recommendations.
Identify your team’s final recommendation to the client and explain why it is the “best” choice based on your research.
Write in a professional tone with no spelling or grammatical errors and cite all resources using current APA style.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
Submit your report to the course room – you need not submit it to the client unless the client requests it.
Submission Requirements
References: A minimum of three resources.
Citations and references: All resources should use current APA style and formatting.
Length: Up to six typed, double-spaced pages, excluding the title page, template pages, and references pages.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 7 Assignment
Initial Draft of Project Report
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 4: Apply professional responsibilities and informed judgments across diverse computing environments that reflect legal and ethical principles.
Competency 6: Identify, analyze, and incorporate user needs in the selection, creation, integration, evaluation, and administration of computing solutions.
Instructions
It’s time to tie your team’s efforts and recommendations together into an initial draft of a project report. For this assignment, focus on the construction of a project report that will eventually be provided to your client as their final deliverable.
Your draft should include the following:
Executive Summary.
The executive summary should be a clear and concise summary of your project outcome, framed in terms of your client’s objectives for the project. You should provide a recap of the client objectives, a summary of your proposed solution or recommendation, and a brief description of work accomplished by the team to develop the proposal and meet the client needs.
Project Scope.
Revisit the project scope document created as a part of your project plan, and review and revise it for this draft. There may have been changes or modifications made as you progressed through the project and these should be reflected. Make sure you are accurately and completely defining your client’s objectives in the scope.
Proposed Solution(s)/Recommendation(s).
Revisit and revise your preliminary IT solutions and recommendations report. The focus of this section should be on describing for your client what alternatives you considered, why you considered them, and their strengths and weaknesses. Cite your information sources and include them in a Reference section at the end of the document.
Describe the team’s final proposed solutions or recommendations clearly and succinctly, and provide justification for selecting this path over the alternatives. All of your justifications should be backed up with evidence – either a review of features/functionality, customer testimonials or reviews, alternative design approaches that have failed, and so on. A sound logical argument may also provide justification, as is appropriate to the proposal.
Initial drafts of other deliverables requested by your client.
If you client has requested other deliverables, such as a comparison table or a prototype, please include these items in this initial project report draft. Your instructor will review them and provide feedback for your team to consider prior to submission of the final draft to the client.
Legal, policy, ethical, societal or global issues.
Your report should include a section that evaluates legal, ethical, policy, social and global issues potentially involved with the proposed solution – consider implementation impacts, on-going use and maintenance of the solution in your deliberations. Don’t forget to consult the discussion results in Unit 6.
Strategic and global implications.
Your report should also identify potential strategic and global implications of the proposed solution within the context of the client organization's intended strategy and global reach. The team should consider how the solution might be deployed in the client organization, whether it aligns with the client’s short or long term strategy, and whether it might be deployed outside the United States. Consider the solution or recommendation you have proposed carefully, and identify any factors that relate to strategy or global business dealings.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
When your report draft is completed, submit it for review. Submit both the initial draft of the project report, as well as the final results to the courseroom.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
Submission Requirements
References: A minimum of five resources.
Citations and references: All resources should use current APA style and formatting.
Length: Up to 10 typed, double-spaced pages, excluding the title page, template pages, and references pages.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 9 Assignment
Presentation to Industry Client
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 1: Analyze complex computing problems and apply principles of computing and other relevant disciplines to identify solutions.
Competency 2: Design, implement, and evaluate computing solutions to meet stated requirements.
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 4: Apply professional responsibilities and informed judgments across diverse computing environments that reflect legal and ethical principles.
Competency 5: Function effectively as a member and leader of a team.
Presentation Instructions
As a requirement for working with a Capella learner team, your client committed to attending a Web-based presentation during Week 9. If you have not already scheduled this session, please do so. Ideally, all team members will participate in the online presentation; in the event a team member cannot be available for the presentation, the team member must contact the instructor to discuss alternatives.
You are expected to record your client presentation using the client’s web conferencing platform or Zoom. Audio recording should be enabled for all participants, including the client. If you are unable to record your presentation, contact the instructor to discuss alternatives.
Your presentation should be engaging, professional, clear, well organized, and focused solely on your client's needs and interests. In your PowerPoint-based presentation, you should (at a minimum):
Introduce all team members involved with the project.
(Team may want to coordinate the delivery of updated team member bios to the client.)
Restate the client’s needs/objectives for the project.
Briefly summarize the process you followed to arrive at your recommendation.
Explain the proposed solution/recommendation in detail, with key justification points.
Review the alternatives you considered, and explain why they did not make the final cut.
Describe significant legal, ethical, policy, societal or global implications of the proposal.
Include a period for questions and follow-up requests from the client.
A 10–15-minute presentation with a 10–15-minute question-and-answer period is ideal.
Provide detailed information in the Notes section on your PowerPoint slides, including in-text citations for your resources.
Debrief of Presentation
After the presentation, debrief with your team members and document the team's observations regarding the presentation. Consider and document:
How the presentation went, overall.
General impressions of how the client received the presentation.
A summary of client questions and answers.
Which team member(s) presented which sections.
Any follow up information or items you will provide to the client.
Any other observations you’d like to share.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
Submit your presentation slides, a link to the recorded presentation, and the team observations document to the courseroom.
Submission Requirements
Presentation:
Number of slides: A maximum of 15 slides, excluding the title page and references page(s).
Citations and references: All resources should use current APA style and formatting.
Length: 10–15 minutes presentation with a 10–15-minute question-and-answer and follow-up period.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Verbal communication: Communicate clearly, using a professional tone, focusing on the content in the slides and responding to client questions and requests appropriately.
Team Observations:
Length: One-to-two typed, double-spaced pages.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 10 Assignment 1
Final Project Report
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 1: Analyze complex computing problems and apply principles of computing and other relevant disciplines to identify solutions.
Competency 2: Design, implement, and evaluate computing solutions to meet stated requirements.
Competency 3: Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
Competency 4: Apply professional responsibilities and informed judgments across diverse computing environments that reflect legal and ethical principles.
Competency 6: Identify, analyze, and incorporate user needs in the selection, creation, integration, evaluation, and administration of computing solutions.
Instructions
This assignment represents the final deliverable for the course. Your team will compile all components of the project into a single document for submission and final evaluation. Your final submission must include:
Cover page with date, team member names and email addresses, and project title.
All sections from the Unit 7 Initial Project Draft, revised based on feedback from your client presentation and the instructor.
Client deliverables not already included in the project draft report.
Reference section listing all references cited in your work.
Appendix containing:
Team Charter.
Project Plan.
Project Schedule, edited to accurately reflect who completed which tasks in the project effort.
Presentation slides and team reflection.
Refer to the scoring guide to ensure that your work meets the grading criteria for this assignment.
Submission Requirements
Each team member needs to submit the report in the courseroom.
References: A minimum of five resources.
Citations and references: All resources should use current APA style and formatting.
Length: Up to 10 typed, double-spaced pages, excluding the title, template, and references pages.
Written communication: Write in a professional tone, with no spelling or grammatical errors.
Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12 point.
IT4990 Information Technology Capstone Project
Unit 10 Assignment 2
Professional Development Plan
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 7: Design and plan professional development activities to maintain currency and active engagement in the computing field.
Instructions
Through reflection and self-analysis in Units 4 and 9, you were asked to consider your ongoing professional development. Please review your posts and feedback from the Unit 4 Lifelong Learning and Unit 9 Planning for Professional Development discussions as preparation to complete this assignment.
Summarize and synthesize your findings into a one-page Professional Development Plan that specifies what you hope to accomplish over the next three years. For each professional development goal you define for yourself, your plan should include actions and resources that you will use to achieve the goal. In terms of resources, consider ongoing educational opportunities, on-the-job training and development opportunities, memberships in professional associations, and other opportunities at your disposal.
Submit your Professional Development Plan to the courseroom, and retain a copy to use as your personal roadmap to career success in IT!
