CSE 403 project: Project pitch

Overview

1. Develop an exciting project idea with one or two other students. As you develop your vision, think about the problem you are trying to solve, the customer’s point of view, and consider the feasibility and novelty of your project.
2. Present your idea with your team partner to the class.
3. View other groups’ pitches and rank them (including your own) by which project you would prefer to work on. Also indicate your preferred teammates.
4. The staff will use these rankings to organize project teams, taking into account project and teammate preferences.

Setup

You’ll be assigned to a random group of two students via Canvas.

Create your pitch

First, develop an interesting project idea.

1. Write a 1-2 page pitch document (PDF)

You want to convince a venture capitalist that your project idea is worth funding.

Here is information (taken from the Heilmeier Catechism) that you should include in your document.

• Start with a short and catchy project title (not “CSE 403 project pitch”) and your full names.
• Abstract: The first paragraph of your document must be an abstract (or executive summary, or TL;DR) that explains your project at a high level. If someone read nothing but that one paragraph, what do you want them to know?
• Goal: What are you trying to do? for example, what task or problem will your system help users with?
• Current practice: How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• Novelty: What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be more successful than other approaches? Do not reinvent the wheel or reimplement something that already exists, unless your approach is different.
• Effects: Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
• Technical approach: Briefly describe your proposed technical approach. This may include what system architecture, technologies, and tools you may use.
• Risks: What is the single most serious challenge or risk you foresee with developing your project on time? How will you minimize or mitigate the risk? Don’t state generic risks that would be equally applicable to any project, like “we might run out of time”.

2. Create a 4-page max slideshow presentation (PDF)

• Present your project idea at a higher level, compared to your pitch document.
• Focus on the essentials. You have very little time, so don’t dive into technical details.
• You have two goals: to convince the venture capitalists (the CSE 403 staff) to approve the project, and to attract employees (convince other students to join the project). Don’t include details that do not pertain to those two goals.

Structure of the slide deck:

• Your slide deck must have at most 4 slides.
• The first slide should start with the project title and your full names. It may or may not contain other content.
• Your slides must include at least one diagram or figure.

3. Submit to Canvas.

You will submit two PDF documents.

Name your pitch document [last name]_[last name].pdf. Name your slide deck [last name]_[last name]_slides.pdf.

Submit your two files to Canvas.

Present your pitch, and listen to other pitches

The pitches will be presented in class (see the calendar).

All group members must participate in your presentation.

You will have 2.5 minutes. The staff will cut you off at that time if you have not finished. Practice your delivery beforehand to ensure it fits the time!

You will have time at the end of class to reach out to other members of the class for clarifications and/or to organize into a group.

Rank your preferences

You may find it helpful to read some or all of the abstracts – it won’t take long.

You might want to reach out to members of the class (e.g., on the message board) for clarifications and discussions).

Rank project pitches by which project you would prefer to work on. (You can, but do not have to, include your own project as one you want to work on.)

You must fill all the blanks in the the ranking; don’t list just your two or three most preferred projects.

Don’t choose a project that you cannot complete. For example, don’t choose an iOS app if you don’t have a Mac and an iPhone. Don’t choose an Android app if you don’t have an Android phone.

Also indicate your preferred teammates.

Finally, fill out and submit the form of project and team preferences. Full instructions are in the form.

FAQ

Will my grade depend on whether my project is chosen?

No. Your grade is not based upon whether your project is chosen (by other students or by the 403 staff) to be implemented. Rather, your grade is based on the quality of your materials and your presentation. We will be evaluating whether you have addressed the identified project elements, made reasonable judgments concerning them, and organized and presented your pitch well.

Do I have to work on the project that I proposed?

No. Your ranking does not have to include your own pitch, if you are more excited about other teams’ ideas. Also, you do not need to work with your pitch partner.

How many people can work together on a project?

We will aim for groups of 4-6 students per project. If a project pitch is particularly popular, it is possible that more than one group can work on the same project idea – with a different focus or technical approach.

How will you create the project groups?

• We will try to give you your first project choice, based on your project ranking.
• If a set of students submitted identical group members and project preferences, that group will not be split up.
• We may reject some projects because they are poorly scoped for the class (too hard or too easy), require unavailable resources, or have other problems. Or, we may provide feedback to make it more appropriate.
• We will avoid assigning you a project that we think suffers higher-than-average chances of failure in the class, based on our experience.

How should I describe current practice?

You should spend nearly as much time understanding what already exists as you do coming up with something new. For example, don’t propose to develop a web search engine without knowing that Google exists. You could propose, however, some search engine features that you believe would be super useful and that Google doesn’t provide.

Clearly explain what differentiates your project from the alternatives. Differentiate the top-level objectives, target customers, scope, and technical approach of your product from existing, alternative products. Indicate what is novel about your proposed features. Don’t belabor features that are standard in existing packages.

Also, indicate how the proposed project poses interesting design (or other) challenges from a software engineering point of view.

Any advice regarding writing and presentation?

Excellent question! Here are some tips:

• Be specific and give examples – whether you are explaining a problem or a solution.

• Include mockups if you are proposing a system with a GUI.

• Make your slides simple and readable. Make sure your fonts are large enough to be easily read from the back of the room; there is sufficient contrast between the text and background color; and the slides are free of distracting design elements (such as background images or slide template graphics).

• Put the take-home points on the slides, in telegraphic form (no full sentences). You can use these as memory joggers during the presentation. Your live presentation should go beyond what’s on the slides – do not just read the text on your slides. Doing so is incredibly boring to the audience, and if you do so, it means there is too much text on your slides.

• Use color effectively, but be aware that some people do not see the full color spectrum. Highlight the key points to draw the reader’s eye and indicate what really matters about the slide. Use similar colors for related things.