Project management by checkpoint control

Students majoring in computing science are required to undertake a software project during their third year of study. The aim of the project course is to give students some "real-world" experience at designing and implementing a reasonably complex piece of software. Rapidly increasing student numbers has caused considerable supervision problems for academic staff. A method of project management using checkpoint control meetings and a rigorous design discipline was used in 1981. This method allowed the staff to keep close contact with the students' progress without consuming large amounts of time while allowing students to develop individual and creative solutions to problems.