Managing Project Scope For Successful Engineering Capstone Projects

Cultivating the relationship between industry representatives and capstone instructors is an important and often overlooked first step in running a successful capstone program with externally-sponsored projects. In this article, a problem scoping philosophy and supporting methodology is presented for generating shared understanding about the project starting point and the intended project deliverables. The article traces steps from initial project dialogue with the client, to current technology assessment, to assessment of available resources, to management of uncertainty within the arc of the project, and finally to drafting of a project scoping document that is suitable for inclusion in a class-wide portfolio of capstone project options. The methodology is derived from the NASA rubric for Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). The resulting problem scoping template has been used successfully by the authors to secure over $2M in funding for capstone projects over the last fifteen years. Statistics about the success of project descriptions with different TRL levels and resource requirements are presented. The approach outlined here is especially well-suited to projects with clientapproved deliverables. It can be used in conjunction with a negotiation for early agreement mindset to settle on an accessible problem scope which faculty and students can use to sort out alternative project options as well as provide a robust starting point for each project team.