# Portfolio Project Planner

**Time:** 35 minutes\
**Use it for:** Shaping one manageable project that can demonstrate your process, judgment, and learning.

Help a reader understand the problem, what you did, and what you learned. A class, club, volunteer, or personal project can work. Start by choosing a result you can finish and a clear way to explain your contribution.

## 1. Decide what you will make

Choose a problem connected to skills you want to practice. Name the audience, constraints, and a deliverable you can complete. If the project uses someone else's need, confirm what you have permission to create and share.

- Problem and intended audience:\
  ________________________________________________________________
- Skill you want the project to demonstrate:\
  ________________________________________________________________
- Deliverable, constraints, and finish date:\
  ________________________________________________________________

## 2. Keep a record of your process

Decide how you will preserve meaningful stages, such as notes, sketches, calculations, drafts, decision logs, tests, or feedback. Capture enough to explain choices without exposing private data, licensed material, assessment answers, or confidential work.

| Project stage | Evidence to save | Privacy or permission check |
| --- | --- | --- |
| __________________ | __________________ | __________________ |
| __________________ | __________________ | __________________ |
| __________________ | __________________ | __________________ |

## 3. Decide how you will check the result

Choose checks that fit the project: completion against requirements, feedback from a permitted reviewer, an accessibility check, a working demonstration, or a comparison with a starting point. A learning result is valid when broader impact cannot be measured.

- What will count as complete?\
  ________________________________________________________________
- How will you test or review the result?\
  ________________________________________________________________
- Which outcomes can you verify, and which will remain unknown?\
  ________________________________________________________________

## 4. Draft the project page

Write a concise overview, context, your role, process, outcome, and reflection. Credit collaborators and sources. Test every public link and image, explain specialized terms, and ask someone unfamiliar with the project what they think you did.

- One-sentence project summary:\
  ________________________________________________________________
- Key decision and the evidence behind it:\
  ________________________________________________________________
- What you learned or would change next time:\
  ________________________________________________________________

- [ ] The project has a realistic finish line.
- [ ] My role and collaborators are credited accurately.
- [ ] Public artifacts are mine to share or properly licensed.
- [ ] Confidential, assessment, and personal data are excluded.
- [ ] Links work and the stated outcomes match the evidence.

## Source

- University of Maryland, Baltimore County Career Center: [Professional Portfolios](https://careers.umbc.edu/students/documents/portfolios/)