The Capstone Project Advisor Role

Industry-sponsored projects require participation by multiple parties to ensure success.  A commitment by the company to help ensure an effective student learning experience is fundamental.  EED staff select companies willing to assign an effective liaison to the team.  Additionally, we assign a faculty advisor to each team to serve as coach.  These advisors are typically faculty members with experience working with student teams and industry projects and with some degree of technical familiarity with the project scope.  Faculty advisors typically invest 3-5 hours per week with the project team.  Some guidelines and expectations for each project advisor are listed in more detail below.  While these are guidelines, they include those tasks that generally lead to a successful team project.

Attend the kick-off meeting with the student team and sponsor organization.

• Assist in defining a realistic project scope to avoid unrealistic expectations.
• Lead the discussion to define realistic project goals.
• Establish logistics for team visits, meetings, and presentations.

Advise the student team.

• Help the team create a charter and assign roles (especially a team leader).
• Coach the team leader, create a time-line (Gantt chart), define tasks, and assign responsibilities.
• Attend and advise students in weekly status-review meetings.
• Attend all customer conference calls, design reviews, and presentations.
• At each weekly meeting, review past performance, future tasks, and hurdles.  Assist when unnecessary hurdles arise that may detract from reaching the goals.
• Encourage selection of a sponsor liaison and coach this person in professional communication.

Hold the student team accountable for their responsibilities.

• Review notes and/or any unnecessary delays in meeting project deadlines.
• Approve all project expenses and purchases of prototype parts.
• Review and approve technical drawings and fabrication instructions.

Grade/provide feedback on the team’s overall performance and evaluate individual contributions for:

• Meeting the course learning objectives and expectations.
• Implementing the design process and applying knowledge and skills to the project.
• Personal commitment to achieve results and contribute to team effort.
• Oral presentations, project notebooks, and written reports.
• Quality of the final design and testing results.

Lead efforts to improve team effectiveness.

• Administer formative assessments and use them to improve students’ contribution.
• Foster team building, leadership, and interpersonal skills within the team.
• Coach effective and professional communication with sponsor.

Encourage students to seek personal development as a result of formative assessments.

Promote consistent communication guidelines (written and oral).

Participate in summative and informative assessments (grading) based upon standard rubrics.

Note: It is important for advisors to understand that this is a student project and that advisors act as coaches.  It is important not to become the lead designer, but to encourage students to seek their own sources of knowledge and create their own solutions.