Capstone Prospectus

INTRODUCTION
The prospectus is the capstone proposal that details the goals and expectations for your project. It contains information including the project plan, expectations, rationale, methods, timelines, and proposed outcomes. It is essential that the prospectus is approved prior to starting the project itself. This protects you by providing a common, agreed-upon goal.

Note: Work performed on contract for a third party or for an employer is their property. You must obtain their permission to include the work. Your work will not be evaluated until the appropriate form or forms have been provided as a separate attachment:

The IT Capstone Waiver-Release Form: Complete and submit with your capstone work.

The IT Capstone Employer Release Template: Complete this form to obtain authorization if your capstone project is based upon or includes restricted information. Submit this form with your capstone work.

Before starting this task, ensure that task 1 has a passing score. If task 1 is not yet passed, your Prospectus will be returned without evaluation.

REQUIREMENTS
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. An originality report is provided when you submit your task that can be used as a guide.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

Develop a prospectus for your project in which you complete the following:

A. Summarize in an abstract (suggested length of 200 words) the important prospectus points. Include the following points:

1. Business/IT problem under investigation

2. Plan

3. Research methodology

4. Implementation proposal

5. Proposed outcomes

B. Summarize in an introduction (suggested length of 6–9 pages) the capstone’s highlights. Include the following:

1. The scope of the project

2. Your rationale for choosing this project

3. A problem statement

4. The background of the problem

5. The need for this solution

6. Your reasons for the chosen approach

7. The organization of the prospectus

C. Summarize in a business statement or an IT problem statement (suggested length of 3–5 pages) the components of the problem. Include the following:

1. Background information of the problem

2. Causes of the problem

3. Business impacts of the problem

4. Cost analysis

Note: The cost analysis should deal with the costs of the implementation of the solution, not the costs incurred because of the problem.

5. Risk analysis

Note: The risk analysis should deal with the risks of the implementation of the solution, not the risks incurred because of the problem.

6. Assumptions about the problem

7. Limitations of the problem

8. Technical terms used in the statement

D. Explain (suggested length of 4–6 pages) why a technology solution is needed.

1. Discuss the business drivers (i.e., important and relevant business factors).

a. Justify the importance of the business drivers.

2. Discuss what could happen if no technology solution were implemented.

3. Justify the technology solution within business priorities.

E. When you use sources, include all in-text citations and references in APA format.