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Capstone Options

Five scenarios are offered, all drawn from the course's example-project library. Each is a realistic product with realistic constraints, and each foregrounds different project management difficulties. Your first deliverable is to choose one and justify the choice — the rationale is part of the assessment, not a formality.

These are synthetic scenarios, not real projects

Every scenario is a composite written for teaching. None describes a real organisation, product, or outcome. Any figures you invent for your capstone are yours to design and must be labelled as your own assumptions — the same rule the lessons follow. Never present invented data as observed fact.

How to choose

Three questions decide it, and the honest answer to the third matters most:

  1. Which difficulty do you want to practise? The scenarios differ in what is hard, not in how hard they are. Choosing the difficulty you have found hardest in the labs is the best use of the capstone.
  2. Can you describe the product well enough to scope it? You need one capability, end to end, not a platform. If you cannot say what exists when you finish, choose more narrowly.
  3. Can you find a real user for the first increment? Milestone M3 requires that someone other than you has used it. If no such person exists for your chosen scenario, pick the one where they do — this is a requirement, not a preference.

Option A — University Learning Management System
Product Instructors publish materials, set assignments, and post grades; students submit work and track progress
What is hard Many diverse users with conflicting needs; term-driven, immovable deadlines; accessibility obligations; migration from existing tools
Best for practising Stakeholder analysis, non-functional requirements, change control, release planning around fixed dates
Suggested single-capability scope "A student can submit an assignment and see the grade returned" — everything else excluded
Realistic constraints to adopt The academic calendar cannot move; accessibility conformance is required; some instructors resist change; exam-period load is a hard peak

Option B — Hospital Appointment Platform
Product Patients book, reschedule, and cancel clinic appointments, replacing a phone-and-paper process
What is hard Safety-critical context; strict regulation; clinical and administrative priorities conflict; the existing service must keep running throughout
Best for practising Risk management, quality assurance, verification versus validation, stakeholder conflict, phased rollout
Suggested single-capability scope "A patient can book one appointment type and cancel it" — triage from the Module 02 stakeholder work, not the whole clinic
Realistic constraints to adopt Downtime during clinic hours is unacceptable; patient data is sensitive; two stakeholder groups disagree on the booking rule; the old process must work during rollout

Option C — Public Service Complaint Portal
Product A service for citizens to raise complaints, track them, and receive a resolution
What is hard Procurement and contracts; accessibility as a legal requirement; a public audience; scope set by policy rather than by users
Best for practising Procurement and vendor management, governance, accessibility as a non-functional requirement, public accountability
Suggested single-capability scope "A citizen can submit a complaint with one attachment and receive a reference number"; staff view and update status
Realistic constraints to adopt Delivery is contracted to an external supplier; accessibility conformance is mandatory; scope is defined by a service standard; budget is fixed annually

Option D — Data Analytics and Reporting Platform
Product A dashboard showing operational metrics, refreshed regularly, with drill-down and export
What is hard Requirements genuinely unclear at the start; data quality unknown; "done" contested; performance expectations high
Best for practising Iterative delivery, prototyping, eliciting requirements from users who cannot articulate them, definition of done, measurement design
Suggested single-capability scope "Three agreed measures are visible, refresh nightly, and export to CSV" — with the measure definitions part of the work
Realistic constraints to adopt Nobody can specify precisely until they see something; the source data is messy; two stakeholders disagree on which measures matter

Option E — E-Commerce Application
Product An online store with catalogue, basket, checkout, and order tracking
What is hard Commercial pressure; third-party payment dependencies; seasonal demand spikes; relentless feature requests
Best for practising Scope management, prioritisation, vendor management, estimation under pressure, controlling scope creep
Suggested single-capability scope "A customer can add an item to a basket and complete a simulated payment, and the order appears in an admin list"
Realistic constraints to adopt A fixed launch window; a payment provider whose integration you do not control; a sale event that concentrates traffic; the business wants everything in the first release

Propose your own

You may propose a different project of equivalent scope. It will be assessed identically, and it must satisfy the same tests:

  • It is a software product, not a document, a research report, or a process improvement.
  • One end-to-end capability can be delivered and used within your available time.
  • A real user exists who will use the first increment and tell you what they think.
  • It has at least one constraint you cannot move — a deadline, a regulatory rule, an external dependency, or an accessibility requirement.
  • It has at least two stakeholder groups with a genuine possibility of conflicting objectives.
  • You can state what is excluded, in writing, in at least three lines.

A capstone on a familiar domain is usually stronger than one on a novel domain, because the project management — not the domain — is what is being assessed.

Writing your rationale

Your selection rationale is deliverable 1 and should be no longer than a page. It answers four questions:

Question What a good answer contains
Why this project? The difficulty it lets you practise, linked to what you found hardest in the labs
Why this scope? The single capability, and the exclusions that make it finishable
Why this delivery approach? Predictive, adaptive, or hybrid — with the reason, not the preference
What makes it hard? The constraint you cannot move, the stakeholder tension, and the risk you expect to meet

An honest rationale naming your weakest area and choosing to practise it is stronger evidence of understanding than a rationale that claims to demonstrate everything.