Capstone: Side Project Management Best Practices
Capstone is my first attempt to manage such a large side project. I had projects I did for a month, but not a project meant for six months…
Capstone is my first attempt to manage such a large side project. I had projects I did for a month, but not a project meant for six months. Learning side project management through capstone is a good opportunity because it’s a side project with some structure. It’s self-driving, but you have harsh deadlines. I don’t have a structured curriculum to work through, but I have an advisor to unblock me when needed. I learned some side project management best practices through this process.
Create a public-facing project proposal
The best way to structure a new project is to write a public-facing project proposal to introduce your project. (This is mine!) It will probably include — Motivation, Background Information, Existing Solution Analysis, Project Focus, Methodology, and Intended Deliverable. I didn’t realize how powerful it could be until I wrote it. Some benefits exist as follows.
It creates a skeleton for your project with what you have done and what you plan to do.
It’s for general readers, so it requires you to deeply process what you’ve learned to explain it to others.
It encourages you to learn in the open. Whenever you want to reach out to people to discuss your project, you send the proposal to them.
I use it as my compass to navigate my project. Throughout the writing process, I also rethink my plan, which isn’t concrete yet. In addition, I send it to all the professionals I want to talk to, letting them know I’m trying to do some “real work.”
Iterate a suitable project workflow
Organizing a project workflow can be challenging when the project direction is constantly changing. Here are a few iterations of managing big projects.
My first version workflow
I started by using Hepta to organize my entire capstone. It’s beneficial for the idea brainstorming stage, but it becomes less suitable in the later stage of the project. First, it’s time-consuming to zoom in and out to find a particular note in the entire project space. Second, I spend too much time thinking of organizing things together. I can see multiple ways to connect my notes, and I stumble to think of “the best way.” It’s too messy for me. Currently, I only use it for idea dumps.
My second version workflow
I switched to Notion, and used a simple logic, Planned, In Progress, and Done, to simplify my complex Hepta notes. I add new things whenever I have a new upcoming task. I find it rewarding to see all the finished tasks. However, everything has meshed together (e.g., assignments, work, classes) without assigning importance to the tasks.
My third version workflow
I copied this template from my friend, Steve. I love this version so much more because
It creates a hierarchy for task importance. It displayed the most important workflow, the project itself, but shrinks the rest of the information (e.g., Class content, assignment instructions, paper collections) into pages.
It also encourages me to pre-scope my project. In my Capstone workflow, this template requires me to break down my project into trackable tasks and provide an expected timeline. It’s like a project recipe; you write the ingredients needed to finish the dish.
Document as if I’m reporting to my manager
Since it was a self-project, I usually read many resources but forget about them or have messy links I never open anymore. After the Meta summer internship, I learn how to synthesize my data analysis report and research results for my manager to quickly grasp my project. I find this mindset particularly useful because
It structures my thoughts for resources I read online and tightly connects them to my project
Give a quick overview of ongoing weekly updates for my advisor
Save time looking through all the resources when I need to use them next time.
It was a mountain of online information but now, it’s knowledge.
Keep track of a specific ongoing to-do list
The ongoing to-do list has a similar impact on “Document as if I’m reporting to my manager” on a granular/daily level. I realized my brain was slow to wake up to start my capstone session. I always need to think for 30 minutes or want to procrastinate about what to do when starting a new session, especially when I am deep diving into coding or reading in the previous session. Therefore, after every session ends, I create an ongoing to-do list for all the tasks and joint down immediate next steps I can work on next time.
Now, I no longer need to rethink what I did in the last session, which stops me from procrastinating.
All in all, writing a public-facing post is mainly for project scoping, the project workflow template is for a rough half-year planning, good documentation practice is for weekly output updates, and an ongoing to-do list for daily progress.
Next steps
I’m still in the process of iterating my best practices and figuring out my project, and here are the questions I want to improve on.
How to develop better next steps than my advisor?
I will keep diving into different problem branches. How can I make sure my project can still be delivered on time?
I plan to write my next step ideas for the first question and compare them with my advisors’. For the second question, I want to learn how to be obsessive about the right question and convert the mindset into an actionable item. For instance, I might start writing a structured output draft and see what the most critical items missing in my project now are.