Students and instructors should clearly outline the project's objectives in one column. In a second column, a weighted breakdown of the job's objectives should be listed. For example, a project might involve a spay/neuter drive at a local humane society. In the objective column it would say "Convince as many pet owners as possible to spay/neuter." In the breakdown column it would say "Approached passerby", "Handed out material" and "Signed up participants."
All the resources for a set project should be listed including people, locations and financials. For example, humane society volunteers would be one resource and vouchers for free or reduced spaying/neutering would be another. The list might say the number of volunteers or the amount the vouchers were good for and at what veterinarian. This information should be extremely detailed.
List all possible obstacles plus any long-term consequences that may adversely affect the project. A possible hindrance to a humane society spay drive might be that many pet owners are also breeders of pedigreed animals and spaying or neutering would interfere. They would have objections to the drive and be unwilling to take literature on the subject or to discuss it. Another consequence might be that if a good portion of the pets were spayed or neutered in one area, new pets might be harder for people to find. List ways to overcome these problems.
List what the expected or desired results of the project are. Concrete as well as abstract expectations can be listed. The spay/neuter drive may have listed as a concrete expectation "Assign 100 pet owners vouchers, potentially reducing the number of strays born in the next year by 20 percent." For an abstract it might say something like "Educated the public about the spay/neuter problem for future results."