The seven phases¶

Each phase has its own kind of activity, scheduled across different weeks and days as decided in your own group's project plan. The tasks listed under each phase are the concrete things somebody has to do — marked team, contact person or individual.

Phase I · Briefing and project selection¶

Michaelmas term

Design briefs are presented, and you record the projects you would most like to work on.

• In Michaelmas term, the design briefs are presented to students. Browse the 2026 design briefs to see what a set looks like.
• You may express your preferences via the Moodle IB Group Project pages.
• Some projects are far more popular than others, so there is no guarantee you will be assigned to your first preference — or indeed any of your preferences.
• You will be expected to work on whatever project you are assigned to, with colleagues that you have not chosen.

Phase II · Kickoff and risk analysis¶

Week 1

Teams are announced, a contact person is elected, and the first client meeting sets the requirements.

• Group membership, clients and assigned project briefs are announced at the kick-off meeting on the first Thursday of Lent term.
• If there is a serious reason for members of a group to feel they cannot work together, they must inform the organisers immediately. No requests for changes in group membership will be considered after the kick-off meeting.
• Each team must elect a contact person, who is the primary point of contact with the client and the group project administration team.
• Meeting 1 is your first priority: contact your client and schedule it within Week 1. You are advised to meet as soon as possible. The meeting clarifies the client's requirements.
• Within 24 hours of Meeting 1, review the technical and managerial risks, decide which are most serious, and document them in a risk assessment of up to 50 words.

Phase III · Requirements analysis¶

Week 2

Turn open-ended requirements into a formal functional specification and a costed project plan.

• The first major task is to turn the requirements — which may still be quite open — into a formal functional specification and a project plan to implement it.
• Take care not to develop an over-elaborate specification that will commit you to more work than necessary.
• Each member of the group is expected to make a technical contribution and to gain substantial experience of programming. This might involve test harnesses or scripts, data conversion utilities, a tutorial system, external interfaces, demonstration examples, or other code as appropriate.
• Draft the specification and plan and send it to your client at least 24 hours before Meeting 2. Discuss it at the meeting, adapt it, and send the final version to the client and the group project email address within 24 hours.

Phase IV · Implementation¶

Weeks 2–6ish

Write, test and integrate the code, reporting progress to your client at meetings 3 and 4.

• Write the code of individual components and test them in isolation. This is likely to require the construction of special test harnesses for modules or classes.
• Integrate the components and test the final system.
• Client meetings 3 and 4 are used to report progress and receive feedback, in weeks 4 and 6 respectively.
• After Meeting 3, and before Friday of Week 6, every student must review their personal contribution to the project so far, making an interim assessment using a questionnaire on Moodle.

Phase V · Wrapup¶

Weeks 6–7

Finalise and document the code, film a four-minute video, and write the final group report.

• Finalise the code, ensure it is adequately documented, and prepare a video presentation.
• The deadline for video and code completion is noon on the Thursday at the start of Week 8. At that time, a full copy of your group code repository (zip or tar file) must be submitted to the examiners via Moodle. No credit will be given for features added after this.
• The team must then work together to write a final report describing the project's successes and failures, elaborating on any lessons learned, and documenting the work done by each member of the team — including sections describing each person's specific technical contributions.
• The final group report should be submitted as soon as possible after the deadline. The latest possible time to send it is the last Wednesday in Lent term.

Phase VI · Presentation and awards¶

Week 8

Videos go online, the whole department votes, and the term closes with a public exhibition and prizes.

• The video presentations are made available to all Computer Lab staff, clients and Part IB students from Monday to Wednesday of Week 8.
• In that time, those people can also vote for their favourite project in a series of categories.
• On the last Wednesday of term there is a public screening of the videos, an interactive exhibition with demonstrations of all projects, and presentation of the awards.

Phase VII · Reflection and review¶

By 5pm, last Wednesday of Lent

An individual personal report reflecting on the experience, your contribution, and your team.

• Every student must write an individual personal report.

Next: Key Dates — the full schedule for the 2026–27 cycle.

Back to: Project Teams overview