Skip to content
On this page

Presentation

Being a good software developer also means being able to communicate what you did and will do to clients, management, and your peers. The oral presentation component of the projects helps to give you practice in this arena.

There will be three presentations:

Product Pitch Presentation

Before iteration-1, you will provide a brief presentation to pitch your project idea (i.e., the software product you are going to build).

Product Delivery (Practice Presentations)

You will give a practice presentation during the last week of classes which is considered a dry run for the final presentation.

Product Delivery (Final Presentations)

The final presentation will be during the examination period. More information on this will follow when we get close to the end of the semester.

Product Pitch

You will present to your advisor (or instructor). Your presentation must take at least 10 and at most 15 minutes. We will consider another 5 to 10 minutes for Q/A (which may be interspersed with your presentation). Our questions will generally aim to clarify our understanding of your project topic and your plan to implement it.

Caution

  1. You must use slides (or other visuals) to supplement the delivery. It is not acceptable to simply open your "GitHub Wiki" and speak about the project!

  2. All team members must participate; perhaps plan for each member to describe one section (or at least one user story).

You must structure your presentation as follows.

Opening remarks [1-3 minutes]

Tell us what your project is about and what problem it solves.

What does your application do? [4-6 minutes]

This is about the functional requirements (user stories) you've written. You must aim to explain at least four "must-haves" and one "nice-to-have" user story. Present the user stories that capture requirements specific to your app (what makes it different from other apps). For example, do not present a user story about user authentication! Just about every app has that!

What is your plan to implement it? [5-6 minutes]

This is about your roadmap and software stack. Tell us what programming languages, tools, frameworks, ... you are planning to use. Show us the backlog for iteration-1 to 4; elaborate on your plan!

Product Delivery [Practice]

You will present to your advisor (or instructor). Your presentation must take at least 20 and at most 25 minutes. We will consider another 5 to 10 minutes for Q/A (which may be interspersed with your presentation). Our questions may involve asking you to try certain inputs in your application during the live demo.

Caution

  1. You must all work with the deployed application to demo " What does your application do."

  2. You must use slides (or other visuals) to supplement the presentation for "How does your application do it."

  3. All team members must participate; plan for members to take turns presenting various sections.

You must structure your presentation as follows.

What does your application do? [10-15 minutes]

Remind us of what your project is about and what problem it solves. Then, enumerate four to five user stories that you have implemented. For each user story, show a live demo of your deployed app where the user story is realized.

Please note:

  • We need a live demo (don't use slides, screenshots, etc.)
  • Do not waste time showing us trivial features like how a user can signup or login to the application. (Unless that's an essential aspect of the app!)
  • Strategize and prioritize: we want to see a demo of core "must-have" features that distinguishes your app from others.
  • Show us you delivered what you've set out to do and pepper it up with features that make us go "Wow!"
  • You should each take turn to show us a (2-3 minutes) demo involving one user story.
  • Show the project works! Be sure your demo is iron-clad; practice it in advance!
  • You must all work with the deployed application. But please keep the app running locally on your computer too (each team member must do this) in case the deployed app breaks/crashes/fails/stops/etc., during the demo.
How does your application do it? [7-12 minutes]

This is about the technical (behind the scene) stuff: design, architecture, code, backend, frontend, technology, APIs, databases, algorithms, etc.

  • You must have a slide show for this section.
  • Describe the high-level architecture, in particular, frameworks, databases used, etc.
  • Next, present a high-level overview of the design, likely via a UML class diagram. Don't show us a huge busy diagram of all classes in your application. Instead, make it about the most interesting sections of the design. In particular, the parts about the critical, core, and unique aspects of your application.
  • Describe some of the complex algorithms or technologies, tools, etc., you have implemented (no need to show the actual code).
  • Describe how you tested your application (make sure to include a screenshot of code coverage).
  • You should organize the presentation delivery into sections divided up amongst group members.

Product Delivery [Final]

The final presentation shall involve a live demo of your application. All team members are expected to be present and take part in the presentation. The key factors affecting your grade are organization and clarity.

INFO

The presentation will be in-person. In addition to the team, the instructor and your advisor will be there. Other advisors may join the in-person presentation. We will offer the option for other students to join the presentation via a Zoom call. The presentation will be recorded but will not be made available to students.

Note

The sign-up link for the final presentation will be posted here.

Your presentation must take at least 30 and at most 45 minutes. We will consider another 15 minutes for Q/A (which may be interspersed with your presentation). Our questions may involve asking you to try certain inputs in your application during the live demo.

You must structure your presentation as follows.

Opening remarks [2-3 minutes]

Remind us what your project is about and what problem it solves.

  • We know what you've been working on but a brief overview helps to set the scene.
  • You must choose one team member to deliver the opening remarks.
  • You are encouraged to use slides (or other visuals) to supplement the delivery.[1]
What does your application do? [10-20 minutes]

Remind us of what your project is about and what problem it solves. Then, enumerate four to five user stories that you have implemented. For each user story, show a live demo of your deployed app where the user story is realized.

Please note:

  • We need a live demo (don't use slides, screenshots, etc.)
  • Do not waste time showing us trivial features like how a user can signup or login to the application. (Unless that's an essential aspect of the app!)
  • Strategize and prioritize: we want to see a demo of core "must-have" features that distinguishes your app from others.
  • Show us you delivered what you've set out to do and pepper it up with features that make us go "Wow!"
  • You should each take turn to show us a (3-4 minutes) demo involving one user story.
  • Show the project works! Be sure your demo is iron-clad; practice it in advance!
  • You must all work with the deployed application. But please keep the app running locally on your computer too (each team member must do this) in case the deployed app breaks/crashes/fails/stops/etc., during the demo.
How does your application do it? [10-20 minutes]

This is about the technical (behind the scene) stuff: design, architecture, code, backend, frontend, technology, APIs, databases, algorithms, etc.

  • You must have a slide show for this section.
  • Describe the high-level architecture, in particular, frameworks, databases used, etc.
  • Next, present a high-level overview of the design, likely via a UML class diagram. Don't show us a huge busy diagram of all classes in your application. Instead, make it about the most interesting sections of the design. In particular, the parts about the critical, core, and unique aspects of your application.
  • Describe some of the complex algorithms or technologies, tools, etc., you have implemented (no need to show the actual code).
  • Describe how you tested your application (make sure to include a screenshot of code coverage).
  • You should organize the presentation delivery into sections divided up amongst group members.
Closing remarks [3-5 minutes]

We are interested to hear about:

  1. the limitation of your software (what it does not/cannot/will not do)
  2. the future of your software (what will happen to it after the course is over?!)
  3. the takeaway from this project (yes! a moment of reflection, as a group)

You must choose one team member to deliver the closing remarks (preferably not the same person who delivered the opening remarks). We encourage you to use slides (or other visuals) to supplement the delivery.


  1. If you are using slides, keep them simple. Especially, don't use too much text on the slides. ↩︎

Released under the MIT License.