The Terms of Reference Document
Feb 1st, 2013 by dandelapena
After our initial meeting with Aaron Quesnel of Sky Harvest and Ara (CBEL Learning Officer), our group obtained a much better understanding of Sky Harvest’s mission (please refer to the last blog post) and how we, as a group, can help in this mission. We had certain anticipations of how the project was going to progress, prior to the meeting. For example, a couple of the group members were excited to create an actual, physical, detailed design of the rainwater capture system. However, our meeting with Aaron and Ara indicated that this might not occur, given that our main goal should be focusing on the project management side of things (i.e. budgeting, scheduling, conceptual designs, time constraints, etc.).
Since then, our group started creating a terms of reference document. This document essentially captures Aaron’s requirements and expectations from us. It also allows us to summarize how our group will be organized (in terms of individual roles), our scope, what we need from Sky Harvest to complete the work, and general terms and conditions. The motivation behind the details of the document was based on the acquired information during our initial meeting. As outlined from the course project guidelines, the document will be submitted by Wednesday, February 6, 2013.
General outline of the Terms of Reference document.
- Background: Outlines Sky Harvest’s overall goal of developing sustainable, efficient, and innovative rooftop greenhouse facilities for food production. This also outlines where our group comes into the overall picture – the rainwater capture and storage aspect of the project.
- Purpose: Outlines what the feasibility report is for, as well as what it will contain.
- Organization: Defines individual roles within the project.
- Scope: Explicitly describes what our group will do for this project.
- Requirements: Lists resources our group requires in order to carry out the work.
- Deliverables: The main deliverable will be a feasibility study regarding certain aspects of the project. This will cover Aaron’s specific requirements, as well as accomplish course objectives defined in the project guidelines.
Moving forward, our group is in the midst of conducting research on rooftop greenhouses. It is our plan to start work on the specific details of our project.