The execution phase is arguably the most crucial part of a capstone project as it is when the planning comes to fruition and the actual work is carried out. Proper documentation during this phase allows students to track their progress, identify challenges, and make adjustments if needed. It also creates an important historical record of the project that can be useful for several purposes such as proving work was completed, reporting to stakeholders, continuous improvement, and more.
Some key ways for students to document their work effectively include:
Project management software/tool: Students should maintain a detailed project plan and schedule in a project management software or tool. This allows them to track work breakdown structure, dependencies, allocate tasks, record task status and time spent. It gives a bird’s eye view of project progress. Popular free and paid tools include Microsoft Project, Asana, Trello, etc.
Meeting minutes: Hold weekly standup or sync meetings with the team. Record agenda, discussions, tasks assigned, blockers/challenges in meeting minutes. Meeting minutes act as a communication tool for remote teammates and historical record.
Task/issue tracking: Use a ticketing/issue tracking tool to break down work into actionable tasks. Record detailed descriptions, assignees, due dates, and statuses. Link tasks to specific project phases/components. Track and close issues/bugs. Tools like Github, Jira are useful.
Documentation repository: Maintain all key project documents, reports, presentations, code, etc in a central documentation repository for easy access and version control. This could be a shared network folder, GitHub repository, shared OneDrive folder etc. Ensure documents are well named and organized.
Time tracking: Track time spent on each task/component for reporting, time tracking, billing if client work. Tools like Toggl, Harvest make it easy to track and report time in a granular way.
Testing reports: For any coding/development work, document test plans, test cases, results for each testing phase – unit, integration, system, user acceptance etc. Track defects, edge cases found and resolved. Automated tests are even better.
Blog/journal: Maintain a public project blog or private journal to record lessons, breakthroughs, challenges faced, decisions made on an ongoing basis. Helps reflect and improve.
Surveys/feedback: Get interim feedback from stakeholders/users/clients especially after major milestones to gauge progress, understand issues and improve. Record feedback for future reference.
Status presentations: Periodically present project status via presentations to advisors, stakeholders. Include updates on tasks completed, pending work, issues, next steps etc. Record presentation material.
Milestone reports: Submit comprehensive milestone reports at the end of each phase discussing work done, deliverables, outcomes, lessons learned for that phase. Future phase planning if any. Archive reports.
Portfolio: Maintain an organized digital portfolio of the entire project with sections for – planning documents, task management, documentation repository link, testing reports, blog/journal, surveys, presentations, milestone reports. Use for assessment and future reference/demonstration.
All of the above documentation methods ensure an auditable paper trail of the project progress at every step. They enable ongoing progress monitoring, learning and adjustment. Students can periodically review documentation to track their work, outcomes versus plans and make refinements to complete the project successfully within the given timelines and requirements. Comprehensive documentation is invaluable for capstone projects and sets up students well for professional environments.
Andrew Stroud