Managing Your Project: Title, Aims and Objectives

A surprisingly important part of getting going with your project is the development of your Title, Aims and Objectives. Time invested in thinking through each of these statements about your project is rewarded by a better understanding of your own work, and increased ease of communication to others. Today we look at Title and Aims.

Title

One of the first things you should discuss with your supervisor is the title of the project. Even though you might be able to change this right up to the submission of the final report, it acts as a valuable source of focus and discussion. Your title should say, in as few words as possible, what is the topic of your project. Some examples might be:

A musical instrument for people with restricted movement
Investigation into the use of tablet-based interfaces for non-visual operation
Studying the effect of computer games on the mood of teenagers.

The form of words, and the grammar used, is up to you and your supervisor. But in these few words try to sum up the main focus of the project. Try coming up with a title, then challenge it. Does this actually cover what I'm planning to do? Does it restrict my plans too much? Equally is the title too vague or wide so that it could cover all sorts of things that I'm not planning to do?

Review your title on a regular basis. Try it out on other people and ask them if they understand it.

Aims

It's important to understand the difference between Aims and Objectives, as many people seem to use those terms interchangeably. Aims are what you are aiming for. They are a description of the end-point of the project. Objectives are the detailed steps you plan to take to get there.

To come up with your Aims, try thinking through what you will have achieved at the end of the project if it's been a success. Ask yourself what you think will be true about the world because of your project, that isn't true now.

So for the project with the title 'A musical instrument for people with restricted movement', you might come up with something like:

Aims: To understand the needs of specific individuals who struggle to play musical instruments, and to design and build an electronic-based instrument that allows the user to play notes and chords reliably in real time.

You'll notice that it's much longer than the title, and goes into more detail. There is also more context and information about what the project might actually entail.

For now, if you haven't done so already, try to come up with a title and some aims. Some people find it helpful to come up with two alternative aims: one for if the project is a wild success, and the other which represents the bare minimum required to carry out the project. Chances are that the real project will be somewhere between the two.

Objectives

We'll look at Objectives in a future blog, as they form much of the basis of really good project management.

Full details of these topics (including how to develop the Title and Aims for your project, and more about how they are used in planning) are found in the book - Chapter 17, available on the Amazon site below.