Basic requirements for a social project. Requirements for the design of projects for the competition “Golden Future of Ugra”

In modern pedagogy, the project method is used not instead of systematic subject teaching, but along with it as a component of the education system.

1. It is necessary to have a socially significant task (problem) - research, information, practical.

2. The implementation of the project begins with planning actions to resolve the problem, in other words, with the design of the project itself, in particular, with determining the type of product and the form of presentation.

The most important part of the plan is the operational development of the project, which contains a list of specific actions indicating outputs, deadlines and responsibilities.

3.Each project necessarily requires student research.

Thus, a distinctive feature of project activity is the search for information, which will then be processed, comprehended and presented to the participants of the project team.

4. The result of work on the project, in other words, the output of the project, is the product.

5. The prepared product must be presented to the customer and (or) members of the public, and presented convincingly enough as the most acceptable means of solving the problem.

Thus, the project requires a presentation of its product at the final stage.

That is, the project is the “five Ps”:

Problem – Design (planning) – Information search – Product – Presentation.

The sixth “P” of a project is its Portfolio, i.e. a folder in which all working materials of the project are collected, including drafts, daily plans and reports, etc.

An important rule: each stage of the project must have its own specific product!

The educational project, as a complex and multi-purpose method, has a large number of types and varieties. To understand them, at least three different classifications are required. (Sergeev I.S.)

Let's start with the most basic one, which determines the substantive specificity of each project.

Practice-oriented project is aimed at the social interests of the project participants themselves or the external customer.

The product is predetermined and can be used in the life of a class, school, neighborhood, city, state. The palette is varied - from a textbook for the office to a package of recommendations for restoring the Russian economy. It is important to evaluate the reality of using the product in practice and its ability to solve the problem.

Research project the structure resembles a truly scientific study.

It includes justification of the relevance of the chosen topic, identification of research objectives, mandatory formulation of a hypothesis with its subsequent verification, and discussion of the results obtained. In this case, methods of modern science are used: laboratory experiment, modeling, sociological survey and others.

Information project is aimed at collecting information about some object or phenomenon for the purpose of analyzing, summarizing and presenting it to a wide audience.

The output of such a project is often publication in the media, incl. in the Internet. The result of such a project may be the creation of an information environment for a class or school.

Creative project assumes the most free and unconventional approach to the presentation of results. These can be almanacs, theatrical performances, sports games, works of fine or decorative art, videos, etc.

Basic list of requirements.

First of all, it should be remembered that any project must be presented in a language accessible to colleagues and possible grantmakers. However, there is a basic list of requirements for a social project.

1) Limitation (in terms of time, goals and objectives, results, etc.)– this is a characteristic of a project that allows you to monitor the progress of its implementation in clearly defined stages based on the designated, measurable results of each stage.

The project's limitations mean that it contains:

Stages and specific deadlines for their implementation;

Clear and measurable objectives;

Specific and measurable results;

Work plans and schedules;

The specific quantity and quality of resources required for implementation.

2) Integrity– the general meaning of the project is clear and obvious, each part of it corresponds to the overall plan and intended result.

3). Consistency and coherence– the logic of constructing parts that correlate and justify each other. Goals and objectives directly follow from the problem posed. The budget is based on the description of resources and is combined with the plan.

4) Objectivity and validity– evidence that the idea of ​​the project, the approach to solving the problem, did not appear by chance, but are a consequence of the authors’ work to comprehend the situation and assess the possibilities of influencing it.

5) Competence of the author and staff– an adequate expression of the authors’ awareness of the problems, means and possibilities for solving the issue. Personnel proficiency in technologies, mechanisms, forms and methods of project implementation.

6) Viability– determination of the prospects for the development of the project in the future, the possibility of its implementation in other conditions in which it can be continued.

Requirements for project design.

1) The project is printed and neatly designed.

2) The title page contains the name of the project, information about the authors, affiliation with the institution/organization, year and place of compilation.

3) If the project is more than five pages in length, then it has a table of contents indicating sections and page numbering.

4) If quotes are used in the text, footnotes to the source are required; if the authors used literature, a bibliography is attached at the end indicating the author, title of the book, publisher, place and year of publication.

5) It is advisable that each chapter be printed on a new page, the chapters are divided into meaningful paragraphs.

6) The project should be short and concise, as a rule, no more than 10 pages of readable text - a description of the project.

7) The form of writing the project should be accessible and interesting.

8) Explanatory/additional documentation (scenarios, questionnaires, results of social surveys, reviews, financial forms, etc.) is attached at the end of the project.

An example of a logical table for drawing up a project.

Note that the text of the project does not necessarily have to be presented in the form of a table.

Logical table analysis.

Now let's look at each point in more detail.

A. Statement of the problem.

The most important section of the project. It should present the problem that the project and its analysis are aimed at solving. When formulating a problem, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that problems are the absence of something, something negative, harmful, something that requires change. Show the reasons for this negative phenomenon and its consequences.

The presentation of the problem should not be a simple description, but a concise analysis of its causes. The analysis of factors must be confirmed by quantitative indicators based on previously conducted research (it is necessary to use reliable sources of information). A well-constructed project necessarily contains initial data - indicators, i.e. quantitative and qualitative indicators, which are the starting point for measuring the effectiveness of the project.

Describe whether the organization has attempted this type of activity and how successful it was. Be sure to indicate how the project relates to the activities of the organization, its mission and objectives.

It is in this section that you need to describe the category of beneficiaries– the target group to whom the project activities are directed and whose lives will in some way improve as a result of the project. The organization must demonstrate knowledge of their problems and the availability of specialists who will work with this target audience.

The problem you are going to work on should be defined as specifically as possible.

B. The purpose and objectives of the project.

Target– a general description of the expected results and expectations, the highest point of achievement that the organization strives for during the implementation of the project. The goal must be realistic and related to the problem, objectives, activities and resources of the organization. The intended goals should correspond to the highest level of outcome, i.e. significantly improve the situation described in the problem description. At the same time, the goal must be realistic. Do not include goals whose impact on the situation cannot be measured quantitatively or qualitatively.

Actually target- this is a unique solution to a problem by an organization that has the necessary knowledge, experience, resources, actions to eliminate a negative phenomenon or its causes.

All components of the project are considered from the point of view of fitness for purpose!

REMINDER

on creating educational projects and presentations

Project method is a learning system, a flexible model of organizing the educational process, focused on the self-realization of the student’s personality, the development of his intellectual qualities and creative abilities.

the purpose of the upcoming actions is formulated;

the main stages are outlined;

the results of each stage are determined in the form of tasks;

project deadlines have been established;

performers have been identified and the functions of each have been assigned;

sources of funds to achieve the goal are identified;

the form of reporting on the results of the project has been determined;

Project activities– this is an educational-cognitive, creative or gaming activity that has a common goal, agreed upon methods, methods of activity, aimed at achieving a common result of the activity.

Types of educational projects

1. Research. A research project means the author’s activity aimed at solving a creative, research problem (task) with a previously unknown solution and presupposing the presence of the main stages characteristic of scientific research.

2. Creative. This type of project requires clear planning of the final results and the form of their presentation. The structure of the project is only outlined and further developed in the course of work, subject to the genre of the final result and the interests of the participants, but already at the very beginning it is specified what the project will be. This could be a joint newspaper, essay, video, etc.

3. Introductory and orientation (informational). This type of project is aimed at working with information about some object or phenomenon. It is expected that project participants will be familiarized with specific information, analyzed and summarized for a wide audience. Such projects, like research projects, require a well-thought-out structure and the ability to adjust it as work progresses.

4.Practice-oriented (applied). These projects are distinguished by the future results of the activities of their participants being clearly defined from the very beginning. For example, a document created based on research findings; action program, recommendations.

The project must contain the following parts:

title page

brief summary

• main part

  conclusion (result)

  bibliography

Stage 1

Choosing the wording of the topic– This is the initial and very serious stage of any research. The topic must be relevant, i.e. practically useful and of scientific interest. When choosing a research topic, the author must be guided by several rules:

the topic should be interesting, captivating, and consistent with the author’s inclinations,

the topic must be feasible, its solution must bring real benefits,

the topic must be original,

the topic should be feasible, the literature sources achievable and comprehensible.

1. Initial stage any project is to justify the relevance of the chosen topic. The explanation of relevance should be terse. The main thing is to show the essence of the problem situation and explain why the research is being conducted.

2. Statement of purpose, i.e. posing a question to which an answer must be obtained. At the same time, the put forward goal must be specific and accessible. The work must be necessary. Its results should be of interest not only to the author himself, but also to some other circle of people.

3. After highlighting the target, you must point to specific tasks that have to be solved (study, describe, establish, find out, derive a formula, etc.).

4. A necessary condition for project work is to determine its object and subject. The part of the object that serves as the subject of research is highlighted.

Object of study– a process or phenomenon that gives rise to a problem situation and is chosen for study.

Subject of study– everything that is within the boundaries of the object of study in a certain aspect of consideration.

5. Proposing a hypothesis– a necessary attribute of any research.

Hypothesis is a scientific assumption put forward to explain some phenomena. A hypothesis arises as a possible solution to a problem.

2 - stage

Carrying out design work:

Collection of experimental data, comparing them with literature data and theoretical predictions.

Once a topic has been chosen, questions that need to be answered are formulated - you need to try to collect as much information as possible about the subject of study.

Work planning implies the need to choose a research methodology, calculate what the required volume of observations or number of experiments should be, estimate what part of the work, how much time it will take you.

Choosing a working method depends on the purpose and subject of the study: observation, comparison, experiment, analysis, synthesis, etc.

3-stage

Registration of the obtained work results

After a detailed study of all scientific literature on the topic of research and a final discussion of the results of one’s own research, the stage of literary design of the work begins - its writing.

Work structure:

Title page,

Introduction,

Main part,

Conclusion,

Bibliography,

Applications.

Title page– the first page of the work (not numbered). The table of contents lists the work items with page numbers. Introduction is a brief justification of the relevance of the chosen topic, goals and objectives. The purpose, objectives and methods of the research are indicated. A review of the literature on this topic is carried out. The main part presents and analyzes the results obtained. The reference number in the text of the work must correspond to the serial number in the list of references. The appendix contains diagrams, graphs, tables, and figures.

Design work plan:

Introduction (justification of relevance, definition of goal, task, object, subject, research hypothesis).

Main part (literature review, research methodology, description of the study).

Conclusion (conclusions and results).

Bibliography.

1. The introduction should include a statement of the problem, reflect the relevance of the topic, a definition of the goals and objectives set for the performer of the work, a description of the object, subject, research hypothesis, and a description of the personal contribution of the author of the work to solving the chosen problem.

Introduction- a very important part of the job. The introduction should clearly answer the following questions:

Why is this problem interesting from the point of view of science or its practical application? What place do the results of this work occupy in the overall solution of the problem? Why was the work done, what was its purpose and to what extent was it achieved?

2. Main part should contain a brief overview of the literature used and sources with the author’s conclusions, the degree of study of this issue, a description of the main facts under consideration, characteristics of methods for solving the problem, a comparison of old and proposed solution methods known to the author, justification for the chosen solution option (efficiency, accuracy, simplicity, clarity, practical significance, etc.). The main part is divided into chapters (paragraphs). At the end of each chapter (paragraph) there should be conclusions. The conclusions essentially repeat what was already said in the previous chapter, but are formulated concisely, without detailed evidence.

3. Conclusion should contain in a concise form the conclusions and results obtained by the author (indicating, if possible, directions for further research and suggestions for possible practical use of the research results).

4. Bibliography contains an alphabetical list of publications, editions and sources used by the author, indicating the publisher, city, and total number of pages.

Generally accepted standards for design work

Font: TimesNewRoman, 14, not bold (except for highlighting the names of sections, subsections, etc.).

Line spacing: one and a half.

Fields: top – 2 cm, bottom – 2 cm, left – 3 cm, right – 1.5 cm.

Pagination– from the second (page with plan or contents).

Paragraphs– indent from the left border of the main text by 1.5 cm.

Text alignment in width.

The page is at least 40% full.

Each section starts on a new page (but not a subsection). Do not put a period after the section title.

The scope of work does not include applications.

Basic principles for developing educational presentations

1. Optimal volume. The most effective visual series is no more than 8 – 20 slides. A presentation consisting of more slides causes fatigue and distracts from the essence of the phenomena being studied.

2. Availability.It is mandatory to take into account the age characteristics and level of training of students. It is necessary to ensure an understanding of the meaning of each word, sentence, concept, to reveal them, relying on the knowledge and experience of students, to use figurative comparisons.

3. Variety of shapes. Implementation of an individual approach to the student, taking into account his ability to perceive the proposed educational material in terms of complexity, volume, content.

4. Taking into account the peculiarities of perceiving information from the screen. Concepts and abstract propositions reach students’ consciousness more easily when they are supported by specific facts, examples and images; Therefore, it is necessary to use different types of visualization.

It is necessary to alternate static images, animation and video clips.

5. Entertaining. The inclusion (without compromising the scientific content) in presentations of funny stories and cartoon characters enlivens the lesson, creates a positive attitude, which contributes to the assimilation of the material and stronger memorization.

6. Beauty and aesthetics. An important role is played by color combinations and consistency of style in the design of slides, and musical accompaniment. Visual learning is based not on abstract concepts and words, but on specific images directly perceived by viewers.

7. Dynamism. It is necessary to select the optimal tempo for changing slides and animation effects for perception.

Creating a presentation consists of three stages:

I. Planning your presentation – this is a multi-step procedure, including defining goals, studying the audience, forming the structure and logic of presenting the material.

II. Presentation development – methodological features of preparing presentation slides, including vertical and horizontal logic, content and correlation of text and graphic information.

III. Presentation rehearsal– this is checking and debugging the created presentation.

Requirements for presentations

Slide design

Maintain a consistent design style.

Avoid styles that will distract from the presentation itself.

Auxiliary information (control buttons) should not prevail over the main information (text, illustrations).

Cool colors are preferred for the background.

Use of color

Animation effects

Use computer animation to present information on a slide. You should not overuse various animation effects; they should not distract attention from the content of the information on the slide.

Use short words and sentences.

Headlines should grab the audience's attention.

Location of information on the page

Horizontal layout of information is preferable.

The most important information should be located in the center of the screen.

If there is a picture on the slide, the caption should be located below it.

Avoid solid text. It is better to use bulleted and numbered lists.

Fonts

For headings – no less than 24. For information – no less than 18.

You cannot mix different types of fonts in one presentation.

Use bold, italics, or underlining to highlight information.

You should not overuse capital letters (they are read worse than lowercase ones).

Ways to highlight information

Frames should be used; borders, fill, hatching, arrows; drawings, diagrams, diagrams to illustrate the most important facts.

Amount of information

You should not fill one slide with too much information: people can remember no more than three facts, conclusions, and definitions at a time. An incomplete slide is better than an overcrowded one.

The greatest effectiveness is achieved when key points are displayed one on each individual slide.

Make the slide simpler. The audience only has about a minute to absorb it.

With this article I begin a series of materials devoted to what a project manager needs to do before the start of a project in order to reduce uncertainty. In my opinion, the most important thing is to identify the products (results) of the project and work out the requirements for each of them. The more clearly the requirements are formulated, the easier it is to predict the timing, budget and scope of the project. Let's discuss the process of collecting and analyzing requirements for the products (results) of the project.

For the company that pays for the project, some value is created - in the form of tangible or intangible results of the project.

In the course of my discussion, I will use the definition of the term “project result”, which is given by the PMBOK V Body of Knowledge for Project Management:

Deliverable result- any unique and verifiable product, result or ability to provide a service that must be produced to complete a process, phase or project.

The article will focus on collecting requirements and their analysis for the delivered results of the project, but I will allow myself to replace the term “delivered result” with the term “project result”, while maintaining the definition of the term.

So, before the start of the project, the manager and the customer need to agree on what results the customer expects from the project. Sometimes it's not as simple as it seems at first glance. Try to define a goal for your corporate event project, and then create deliverables that will help realize that goal. How did you deal with this? I think it wasn't easy.

Let's look at the situation using an example project “Implementation of a CRM system in a company”. The customer formulated the following goals:

1. standardize employee actions when working with company clients;
2. reduce labor costs for performing individual operations;
3. increase the reliability of customer data.

And here are the results of the project:

1. Regulations describing the work of employees with clients
2. A software product that automates the rules of working with clients described in the Regulations
3. Company employees trained to use the software product
4. Working support service for software product users

In order to meet the customer's expectations, the project manager needs to clarify the requirements for each project deliverable.

What is a requirement?

There are dozens of definitions of this term.

For example, ISO 9000 states the following: A requirement is a need or expectation that is stated, typically assumed, or required.

The IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology (1990) gives the following interpretation: A requirement is the conditions or capabilities necessary for the user to solve problems or achieve goals.

We will take the definition from ISO 9000 as a basis, and we will assume that an expectation is considered established if it is written down in a document agreed upon by the customer.

Classification of requirements

For some products, requirements classifiers have already been developed to reduce the likelihood that some important product requirements may be missed.

For example, there are classifiers of software requirements. One of them is shown in Figure 1:

Karl I. Wiegers "Software Requirements Engineering"

From the point of view of collecting requirements for a software product, such a classification allows the analyst to remember that in addition to the requirements for the functions of the software product, it is necessary to clarify the requirements for external interfaces and system limitations. In addition, this classification helps to understand where to start collecting requirements and how to clarify them (the arrows in the diagram show the sequence of collecting requirements, but the analyst can return to previous stages). The book by K. Wiegers gives definitions of each category of requirements and examples of them, so I will not give them in the article.

So, when collecting requirements for a software product, the requirements analyst already has something to guide him - there are requirement classifiers and descriptions of requirement classes.

Let's consider what the requirements may be for the regulations describing the rules for working with the company's clients. It seems to me they could be like this:

1. The process regulations must contain a description of the process in the notation ..... (here you need to clarify the name of the notation)
2. The regulations must contain a responsibility matrix listing the functions of each participant in the process (requirements can also be made for the responsibility matrix)
3. The document must not exceed a certain number of words (this is a limitation)
4. The document must be written in a specific font (you can specify its name and point size)
5. The document must contain the following sections (each one can be subject to content requirements):
6. The document must contain a section describing changes made to the document, etc.

Of course, if there was a classifier of requirements for documents of the “Regulations” type, it would be easier for an analyst to take into account all classes of requirements, but I have not yet seen such a classifier.

What requirements can be made for such a result as trained employees?

1. Employees must be trained to use the software product
2. To train employees, a training program must be developed (there may be requirements for the content of the program)
3. Training should take place using real examples of the company. Examples for training must be approved by the project customer
4. Based on the training results, employees' knowledge is tested. The average score based on the results of testing for knowledge of the software product is at least ___ points (on a 10-point scale)
5. The requirements for the methodology for testing employee knowledge are as follows.... and so on.

The requirements for a working software product support service can be formulated as follows:

1. Cost of support service per month
2. Service time (for example, from 8.00 to 20.00 GMT+2)
3. Response time to a service request (for example, 30 minutes from the moment the request is registered with the support service)
4. Time to resolve the problem described in the user’s request (here you need to enter a classification of requests and for each of them determine the standard for closing the request or transferring it to another status)
5. Time to restore service in case of failure
6. The ability for users to track the status of their request
7. Possibility to receive a report on requests for a certain period, etc.

Having formulated the requirements for the project results, the project manager can begin to plan the scope of work and predict the scope of work, timing and budget of the project.

We must understand that any missed requirement for the project result will lead to additional work, and this will affect the timing and budget of the project. Therefore, it is very important for the project manager to try to collect as complete requirements as possible before starting the project.

What approaches are there to collecting requirements for project deliverables?

The most common approaches to requirements gathering are shown in the figure below:

The methods are arranged on a difficulty scale (I note that the placement of approaches on this scale is my subjective opinion).

Observation used to obtain information about how a specific project stakeholder is performing their responsibilities or tasks. In my opinion, the method is good for clarifying the requirements for an existing product, when people using the product cannot or do not want to state their requirements.

Questionnaires- written sets of questions designed to quickly collect information from a large number of respondents. Questionnaires are best suited for situations where time to collect information is limited, when respondents are geographically distributed, or when the budget for collecting information on requirements is very limited.

Document analysis used to identify requirements by analyzing existing documentation and identifying information that is relevant to the requirements. There are many documents that can be analyzed to identify requirements.

Interview- an approach used to obtain information from interested parties through dialogue with them. During the interview, prepared and directly arising questions are asked and answers are recorded. During the interview, the person conducting the interview gets the opportunity to read additional information from the interlocutor’s facial expressions and gestures and ask clarifying questions, which is impossible when conducting a questionnaire.

Focus groups allow you to select several representatives from each of the project stakeholders and conduct a joint discussion to find out their expectations for the product or project result being discussed.

Brainstorm- an approach used to generate and collect a variety of ideas related to the requirements for the results of the project. It is often used in conjunction with other approaches that involve prioritizing the collected requirements (for example, nominal group method, mind mapping, affinity diagrams, etc.).

Innovative games- using a business game, the moderator involves project stakeholders in collecting product requirements and ranking these requirements. I have already described this approach earlier in my note:

Prototyping- a way of collecting requirements by providing a model of the expected product. The model of the future product can be physical, graphical or computer, but it must demonstrate to the maximum extent possible to users what the future product will be like. Through a prototype demonstration, you can quickly get feedback on how well the product meets expectations and clarify requirements. Prototypes support the concept of iteratively refining requirements through a series of iterations, conducting user experimentation, generating feedback, and revising the prototype.

Process Modeling- the method is used to collect requirements for the execution of a process (or some activity). Graphic models are used that make it possible to coordinate the structure of actions in the process, those responsible for the implementation of individual actions, and the transformation of activity objects. Interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups are often used to model processes when collecting information.

QFD (quality function deployment)— an approach that helps identify critical characteristics for the development of a new product, based on the requirements of future users. The approach uses matrices, for example, that show the relationships between requirements and product specifications. I note that this approach is used not only for collecting, but also for analyzing requirements.

After the requirements for the project results are collected, they need to be analyzed for completeness, the presence of conflicting requirements, and the presence of problems with the implementation of the requirements. To solve these problems, a requirements analyst can use tools such as reverse requirements analysis, analysis of analogue systems, TRIZ, Root Conflict Analysis Plus (RCA+), Value-Conflict Mapping +.

As can be seen from the list of approaches, a requirements analyst must know and be able to do quite a lot to solve issues related to the collection and analysis of requirements.

And in conclusion, I want to make a simple point: if, as a project manager, you have to sign up for a project with a certain deadline and budget, but at the same time your team doesn't understand the requirements to the results of the project or is convinced that those available at the input of the project the requirements are too abstract, your project contains too much uncertainty. How to dramatically reduce uncertainty in such a project? One option is to move the collection and analysis of requirements for project results into a separate project, and only based on its results determine the timing and budget of the implementation project. Yes, this option is not suitable for all projects, but it should not be discarded without additional analysis.

So, let's summarize the thoughts:

1. The success of the project is laid at its start by clarifying the project goals, project results, and requirements for results.
2. Collecting requirements for project deliverables allows the project team to understand what stakeholders expect from the project deliverables. Based on the collected and analyzed requirements, the team can develop technical solutions to implement the requirements, determine the list of work for the project, and predict the labor costs of the project. The more complete the requirements for the project results, the more accurately the project manager can make a forecast on the project’s labor intensity, timing and budget.
3. The collected requirements for the project results need to be analyzed for their completeness, the presence of conflicting requirements, and the presence of problems with the implementation of the requirements.
4. In a project that requires the collection or refinement of collected requirements, one should plan to use a requirements analyst, who should be proficient in various approaches to collecting and analyzing requirements.

Personally, in small projects I combine the roles of project manager and requirements analyst. But if the project is complex and the project budget allows, I try to involve professional analysts in order to reduce the risks associated with incomplete requirements for the project results.

Good luck with collecting and analyzing requirements in projects!