VDIS10026 Managing

Design and eBusinessSANGEETA JAIN

Writing Project

Reports

The project report is a document

that systematically records the

entire process of a

Project.

The purpose is to present the solution

derived at and to communicate the

methods used to obtain it.

Why a project report?

To systematically present facts, figures, conclusions and recommendations

To communicate the results, answers, solutions to the project problem

To give information about the process involved in the project

To explain, describe or justify the decisions made during the process

To convey the challenges and limitations of the project

To provide evidence of work

To determine further actions

To set benchmarks or to be used for evaluation

The problem you have to solve is to transfer your own experiences of doing the project, and the

knowledge you have gained, from your brain onto paper in a coherent, logical and correct form.

What to write in a project report?

Typically a project report includes the following:

Introduction

About the topic/product/service

Overview of the project

Objectives and goals

Background

Any relevant/specific information about the topic

About the brand/product/service

Current market positioning/e-business systems/models

Target Audience/Competitors

Problem Statement

What to write in a project report?

The Plan

Your proposed plan, scope and limitations

List available resources/assets

Budget/Timeline/approvals required

With reference to assessment task 3, you will also include:

Start-up funding/logistics/sales/delivery

Stakeholders/team members – roles and responsibilities

WHS legislation regulations applicable

Explain processes for identifying and managing risk in a project

Outline the process for Approvals, Taxation/ABN registration etc.

What to write in a project report?

The Design

The brainstorming, ideation and creation process

Design collaboration, testing and refinements

Final solution/results

Relevant observations, testing, analysis

With reference to assessment task 3:

Link from where you got the website template

The process of editing the template

Justify the design decisions you made

IP/Copyright for e-business

Organisational policies and procedures

What to write in a project report?

Recommendations

Restate important solutions/results

Explain how the design will achieve e business goals

Recommendations to manage project finances, resources and quality

Conclusion

What was accomplished / learned

The challenges and issues you faces and perhaps solved

The techniques you applied to complete the project and product

Scope of work in the future

References

Must have in a project report

The project report must have a cover page and table of contents

You can also include:

Pictures/Graphs/Figures/Process diagrams

Pictures, photographs, sketches, screenshot of the website

Bulleted lists/Quotes/Highlights

Definitions of terms

Reflections

What you learned about yourself from the project experience

How this project extended your knowledge and understanding

What you would have done differently

I m p o r t a n t !

As a student of graphic design, writing a project report, you may

believe that your final visual design solution should be the focus of a

project report and that you may be penalized if it is small-scale or if

it does not make grand claims of its power and functionality. This may lead to reports that are very graphic but light on reasoning. At

times, students omit the reasoning because they are short of time

and think the design is more important. However, this is dangerous!

What will actually give credibility to your design and eventually to

the project report is the reasoning! The reader can “see” your

design but will not know why it is so unless, until you do not write it. It

is also impossible for the reader to know why you think of it as thebest design solution if you do not explain the process, the decisions

that you made during the process and WHY…

How to write a project report?

Precision: You must strive first to be absolutely precise. When you

write, it is not sufficient that you know what you mean but what you

write must not be capable of misinterpretation. Take exceptional

care to choose the right word. Avoid generic words such as good, rich, young etc. Be specific! The options are to explain what you

mean by good, write the range of income to define “rich” or an

age group to specify “young” as you refer to in the report.

Vigour: Good writing is not only precise, however, it is vigorous, energetic! Prefer short sentences to long sentences. Prefer short

words to long words, provided that the short word has the meaning

you need. ``E.g.'' is overused and best used sparingly; prefer ``for instance'' or ``for example‘’. Use an active voice.

How to write a project report?

Spelling and grammar: Take extra care to spell correctly. Poor

spelling is a distraction to the reader. You can use spell-checker

programs which do a good job of finding the errors for you. Be

especially careful with words whose common misspelling is a correct spelling of a different word like lead/led; loose/lose; affect/effect. If

poor spelling is a distraction, poor grammar is more so. Follow the

same tone and style of narration. Write well and spell well!

Typography: A variation in the size or weight in typography facilitates legibility and must be used in report writing. You should

also try to split the information in paragraphs and also know the

difference between the hyphen, minus, en-dash and em-dash, and when to use each of them.

How to write a project report?

Illustrations: Your report should generally contain illustrations (figures

or diagrams or in some cases photographs) which are appropriate

and relevant to the text content. It is also a good practice to

include the illustrations close to the text which refers to and give it a short title. Also include a list of all tables and figures used in the

report at the beginning of the report, after the table of contents.

References: References must be relevant. There are many styles for citing references. Although strict standards for citing references

exist, it is more important to be consistent and complete. You can

include references from websites that you may have referred to or

video that you may have watched online or a book, journal or research paper. Mention all of them in your report.

Project report format

A typical project report format has a 1 inch margins (left and right),

1 inch margins (top and bottom), 12 point times font for the main

text and the text is usually fully-justified (where the letters are aligned

on both the left and right) with single space for the text.

You may use these as basics for assessment task 3 however you are

free to apply your judgement for other sections/headings/titles etc.

The report must be presented in a proper lay out.

For assessment task 3

Submit a written and pictorial report in a PDF format.

A Good Project Report

A Good Report has:

A logical structure

Accurate and concise details

Clarity of thought

Relevant lists, tables, figures or graphs to support the text

Free of grammatical errors