Review of Katherine Nystrom's Proposal

Allen Hayward’s Review of Katherine Nystrom’s Proposal for CS-460

Summary: The proposal is to develop a recipe organization program with unique features directed at the food blogger community.  The program will either work as a home computer based system or a web-based service. Based on Katherine’s experience I believe she would be capable of directing a team for this project. Her insight into the food blogger world would be of utmost importance to ensuring the success of the project.

Scores based on a 1 to 5 rating with a 5 being the best

Syntax = 5: Well written with very few typos or recommended enhancements.

1.      Page 1 – change the word would to will in the first sentence. Make the reader feel like this is something that will happen. A proposal is a sales pitch – “I can see you driving home in this fine car today…”

2.      Page 1 – add comma after the word however in the second paragraph or consider rewriting this sentence. I had to read it a few times to get the meaning.

3.      Page 2 – Change dash between $80 and free to the word “to”. It makes the sentence more readable.

4.      Appendix 1 – No reference in main body of text or header describing what the appendix is for. Add a title and make a reference from the main body of text.

Disclaimer – Being an engineer my proof reading skills are not the best. Consider having someone with real writing skills look at this proposal for grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Plausibility = 4: I believe with the right team this is a very viable project. It might need to be paired down to either the home-based computer version OR the web based implementation to fit within the time line. My lack of web-based design may be showing in my recommendations.

Support = 4: Supporting details were provided in terms of why this is a viable product in the body of the text as well as indications of detailed background investigation were provided in appendix. The writer’s qualifications are spelled out as part of the proposal.

Novelty = 2: I’m not sure that I could completely identify what made this project novel. I recognize that it is intended to be directed towards the food blogger community, but I had a hard time identifying the difference in needs between the “home cook” and the “food blogger”. This may be because of my lack of knowledge in this field (even though I do watch the food channel almost every night). The proposal should provide the details the reader needs to fully understand what makes it novel with the assumption that I am neither a “home cook” nor a “food blogger”. 

Stakeholders = 4: Stake holders in terms of end users is well defined, Stake holders in terms of business arrangements could use some additions. How will this be funded – the venture capitalist should identified as the funding source (at least in this class room scenario). When I finished reading the proposal I didn’t feel like I had been asked to contribute to the project as an investor. Would this software be the basis of a new company or a one shot development and placed on a vending web site? Maybe just a bit more roll playing is needed.

Scope = 2 : After reading the proposal twice through I still not feel like I had a good picture of the scope. I recognize that the proposal indicates that the team would have a lot of input into how this application would be “fleshed out”. In my past experience the proposal either becomes the contract or is a major input into the contract. If it is not very clear, both sides have a bad time identifying when the agreement has been fulfilled. You stated many things that the current products do; will these be part of your project? Identify exactly what new features will be added or at least provided some concrete examples of where you will be guiding the team in trying to make the product “food blogger friendly”.

Profit = 3: I believe the statement that there is a large market for this improved product does exists. The fact that cable television has an ever-growing number of shows dealing with cooking is a good sign of this growing niche market. You provided a list of current product and prices, but never stated what you though the target price might be for this product. As an investor this is a detail that I would be interested in. I think this is targeted towards a mid to upper cost bracket, but you never stated this.

Legality = 5: Probably not a big issue for this project. Only issue might be security of personal recipes. Maybe a small mention of providing a protection for this might be in order, but not a big deal (unless KFC decides to use it to store their secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices in your program).

Security = 5: See legality above

Expense Budget:

I’d recommend that the software developers’ budget indicate the anticipated number of hours and at what rate. Also several of the line items are $0, which is probably unrealistic. Taxes will always be a cost but you can defer that part of the cost to the customer (i.e. investor) by stating that it is as an additional cost not included in the budget. Office supplies, like paper, blank CDs for backups, pencils (which your employees will take home in their pockets), ect is a real expense.  Web server space is also a real expense that should be accounted for.

Time Line: Well laid out. Getting it into a more readable format would be helpful.