Write the Proposal

I assume you have fulfilled all previous steps. You have picked up the team, you have defined relationships, you have picked up the supervisor, and before all, you have picked up the topic. Let's face the truth: Life is not so ROSY. Usually, we do not get what we want. Unfortunately, this is the case too with graduation projects. You might be so convinced with a topic, you feel it is the most magnificent topic that has not been presented in the faculty before, you might think that this topic is the 'Eraser' that will make you number one. This is great, but believe me; just having a magnificent topic is not enough. You have to express it, defend it, and stand in the face of Tornadoes for it.

To present your idea clearly, you need to write a Proposal. I have been asked the question: What shall my proposal include ? Shall I insert the time plan in it ? Shall I write the group member names in the first page, or in the last page ? Shall I make a summary on my project ? Shall I.. Shall I.. Shall I..

Come on Guys, I am not IEEE !!! I am not making the standards of 'Writing a Proposal'. I was sudden to know that some people I meet daily do not do anything without taking a look; an intensive one, on the internet, to find a similar task to the task they want to do; in case they did not find and use the same exact found task, and do it. I believe that it is about you, expressing you, and expressing what you believe is coming from deep inside you.

I have never thought a lot about what shall I include, or shall not. It is more about feeling, sense, and looking professional. You can see lots of proposals followed step by step from previous proposals, but you do not like them, and you can see other proposals, more simple than the former, and you LOVE them once you see them. I will not tell you what to include, and not to include. I will only talk about What ToDo and Not TODO regarding the proposal. Believe me, the proposal is nothing more than presenting a document to someone. According to the document, and this someone, you shall make the correct match.

I have seen proposal like the following one: Mobile Assessment Questionnaire: MAQ You might think it is sophisticated, really with more details than the details a proposal shall contain. But when you know that this proposal was prepared by one of the best students that entered the faculty; ranked first by the way, presented to the Head of Information Systems Department, for sake of making a huge graduation project, that might make sense. An MAQ Overview to the graduation project was immediately presented in the following week, with extended design and implementation details, regarding the graduation project.

You might do not want to make your proposal so advanced like this one. But, my real advice to you: talk to someone before writing the proposal, talk to someone while you are writing the proposal, talk to someone after you write the proposal. Writing the proposal is the most important step in forcing your supervisor to accept you, and your project.

ToDo

• Make it Short
• Make it Simple
• Use a well prepared Template
• Present the Problem
• Present the Proposed Solution
• Present the Tools you will Use
• Use an interface

Not ToDo

• Insert Internet Search Results
• Insert Theoretical Paragraphs
• Use non-well prepared Templates
• Insert too much details
• Say what you will NOT Do
• Present a Time Plan
• Present Assigned Roles and / or Tasks

This Real-Estate Graduation Project Proposal is one of the favorites. It is the one that I send, recommend to be looked at by fresh graduation projects teams to start imagining how graduation project proposal can look like. I like the welcome picture that is used in the opening of the proposal. Besides, I was touched by the contents of the proposal, but with three notes:

They added typical search results from the internet (Evaluation Plan). The problem is this evaluation plan has nothing to do with their graduation project.
They have not used standard colors. There is a miss colors in the proposal.
Topics are not following each other in the same page. They thought about adding a new topic at the beginning of each new page, and I did not prefer this idea that much.But still, that proposal is one of the very good ones I have seen this year (2007).

Do not use non-standard templates, avoid borders, avoid background images, and avoid non-standard colors. Though less than one page ago, I told you that I do not care that much about standards as much as I do care about how the final look of the task will look; the more it looks professional, the more it is better. But, there have been real old fashions that people stopped using decades ago. I have not met an internet professional document that utilized a border or a background image long time ago; check this proposal if you want to see a disaster (catastrophic Plastic Factory proposal). Though the following two proposals conclude the main ToDo tips; they are short, directly highlight the problem, present proposed solution clearly, and present list of utilized tools, they have not met the interface requirements stated by a standard template. The first proposal (Visual Control of Business Processes - Version I) uses a WordArt with a bold blue border, and the second one(Visual Control of Business Processes - Version II; the one prepared for print) utilizes a light border.

This proposal (Digital Signature) almost fits all the ToDo and Not ToDo requirements, but with the existence of this proposal (Digital Library), I became sure that this one is the best that ever existed in this faculty.

Summary

This article can be summarized in this Proposal (Again, the Digital Library One). You are welcome to use this one as a reference. I do not prefer the presence of roles, tasks, and time plans in the proposal. This is a proposal fellows, have you really been able to determine the exact list of tasks, your time plan, and the roles of each member from the first day of the project !!! I do not think so. I love it when it turns to be real. Graduation Project is not about pretending, it is about surviving.