You Will Develop An Initial Project Proposal For A Connected Environment: Weather Reporting IOT Assignment, MIT, New Zealand

Description of Task:

Building on the overview of the opportunity identified in the formative assessment ‘Defining the opportunity, you will develop an initial project proposal for a connected environment. This proposal will address both technical and business dimensions of a connected environment and evaluate how an IoT system could be implemented for their organization or community.

The proposal should include the following elements:

1. Problem overview: setting the scene and context for the problem being addressed, including the intended customer/users and relevant insight;

2. Technical dimension: what hardware and software will be required

3. Business dimension: how do the design, development, and future implementation of connected environments leveraging an IoT system align to the business strategy or organization/community vision and objectives

4. Commercial dimension: what cost/ price/ value elements should be considered

5. Data Collection and Analysis: what will be measured, what data will be collected and how will it be analyzed

6. Ethics, Governance, and Sustainability: analysis of key ethical, governance, and sustainability risks that need to be considered, and any actions that will be taken to mitigate risks

Assessment 1. Assessors will use the criteria below to assess your learning:

1. Critically evaluate the role of IoT in connected environments to address opportunity identified

2. Evaluate technical dimensions of the project proposal

3. Evaluate the business dimensions of the project proposal

4. Evaluate the commercial dimensions of the project proposal

5. Locate and integrate relevant source material, including relevant global and local case studies

Connected Environments Initial Project Proposal

-Value Proposition

Assessment criteria that should be covered in this section:

•  Problem overview: setting the scene and context for the problem being addressed
• Expected benefits and insights gained

Additional prompts that will help you answer the criteria above:

Explain what your product/ service is, what it does and why it is unique and valuable to customers.

-Market

Assessment criteria that should be covered in this section:

The intended customer/users and relevant insight

Additional prompts that will help you answer the criteria above:

1. What is your market size?

2. Who are your target customers? You may use personas for this if you wish.

3. Use demographic, geographic, or similar breakdown

4. Explain what their problem or pain point is that means they need your solution.

5. You may like to use the Value Wedge to explain the problem, your solution, and your uniqueness that provides a competitive advantage.

-Product/ Service

Assessment criteria that should be covered in this section:

1. technical dimension: what hardware and software will be required

2. Commercial dimension: what cost/ price/ value elements should be considered

Additional prompts that will help you answer the criteria above:

1. Describe what your product/ service is.

2. How does the customer buy or use your product/ service?

3. Explain how the product/ service operates.

4. Explain what key technologies are used (hardware and software)

5. If there is hardware, explain how manufacturing will be done and managed.

6. Technology architecture and operation (mention key suppliers such as Azure, AWS, etc), include a roadmap of feature/function upgrades

7. What components or app does the user interact with to use your product?

8. Explain what cost/ price/ value elements should be considered and how these may impact your product service (e.g. what are the potential cost-benefit tradeoffs?)

9. What data are you collecting?

10. How will it be collected?

11. How will it be analyzed?

12. Who will it be of value to and why - valuable insights for people, organizations, and/or industries?

13. Identify and evaluate ethical risks associated with gathering, analyzing and communicating insights from data collected

14. Focus on unique advantages is better than feature complexity. You may want to refer to Kano analysis or the 4 P’s of Marketing to highlight exciting versus satisfying features.

-Competitive Environment

Assessment criteria that could be covered in this section:

Reflection on global and local case studies that have impacted the current state of the project proposal

Additional prompts that will help you answer the criteria above:

1. Who are the key competitors?

2. Consider product/service, industry, and market operators - think broadly who a competitor is.

3. What is the value proposition, advantages, and disadvantages of each

4. Know which products you will be competing with and the companies behind them. Be aware of companies operating in the customer segment that will be threatened by you.  Understand product strengths and weaknesses, and the company market strategy.

5. Explain how the design, development, and future implementation of your connected environment aligns with the business strategy or organization/community vision and objectives

6. You may choose to include a PESTEL/SWOT or Porter’s Five Forces analysis for your product/ service.

-Risk Analysis

Assessment criteria that should be covered in this section:

Sustainability risks

Governance risks