11.04 Project Progress Report

Assignment Deliverables

• 1/2 page to 1 page summary of current status of project that highlights what is finished, what needs to be completed, and a planned schedule of action (.docx or .pdf)

Assignment Overview

When working on long term projects, it is important to have periodic checkins to make sure assumptions made earlier in the process still hold. Sometimes an original goal is no longer relevant. Sometimes items thought to be not important at the start are suddenly the key to success. Once one has spent time working on something the “sunk cost fallacy”, an unwillingness to stop a path of action due to resources already spent even if one started a action now they would choose the better path, can prevent helpful changes from occuring. It can be hard to spend 4-5 weeks working on something to only realize that it does not work. The incorrect take away is that it was a waste of time. The correct take away is that now you know that is not the best way forward and can choose a different option. In the abstract this makes sense but can be extremely hard to do on projects one is personally invested in.

Write a summary of what has occurred so far in the project. Evaluate what parts are worth keeping and what parts are no longer important. What new components have become relevant?