Q: Take the time to describe the purpose of your project and what it will achieve. Write this on a whiteboard, computer document, or paper in a couple of sentences. Make the description as specific and easy to understand as possible. One way to do this is to pretend you're writing a launch announcement for the finished product. Envision what the project will be like when you're done with it. For example,"build a house" is a very basic description. "Build a 3-bedroom glass beach house" is more descriptive and useful. Come up with ways to accomplish the project's goals. Start with the big steps and list them under your goal. This will give you a basic idea of what you need to do. Break these steps down into smaller ones to make them more actionable. It can be helpful to start with your vision of the final project and identify what you need to do to make it a reality. For example, if you're building a website, you need to make graphics, provide coding, and write the page's text. An actionable step might be, "Apply a filter to the picture of the elephant, then post it to the website." Let your team look at the list and give their opinions. Many times they'll come up with more small steps needed to accomplish the ones you listed. Sharing these steps also ensures that everyone working on the project is on the same page. One way to do this is to create a mind map. To do this, first list the large tasks, then draw "branches" linking them to smaller steps and ideas. Be sure to take a picture of the map or save the paper. Go back to each of the steps you listed and calculate what resources you'll use accomplishing them. Your guess won't be 100% accurate, but it should give you a sense of what is needed to finish the project. Remember that tasks your group hasn't done before take up extra time and money, so account for this. You can research how much time and money a task takes by searching online and asking people who have done it before. For example, an expert coder can tell you how long it takes to create a new program for your website. It can be helpful to allocate a set amount of time to tasks that can go on indefinitely. For example, write, "We'll spend up to 20 hours creating the graphical layout." If you're unsure of a step's costs, you can list how much time and money you're willing to set aside to complete the step. For example, write, "This section of our game world must be done within 2 months and cost less than $1,000." Now go back to your big list of steps and rearrange the steps into a working order. You can group the tasks into stages with deadlines, which is useful for keeping your team on track. For example, when building a website, project stages or milestones might be building, designing, and testing. When you complete a milestone or stage, it can be helpful to acknowledge your team's work. Send them an encouraging message, buy them doughnuts, or by doing something else that inspires them. Decide which tasks your group members will work on. To do this, talk to each person to find their strengths and areas of expertise. You can also divide up some of the responsibility by having project members volunteer for different parts. For example, you'd most likely want a graphics artist handling the project's visual aspect. You might then assign construction work to someone else.
A: Identify the project's goals. Create a to-do list with the tasks you need to tackle. Go over the list with your team. Estimate the time requirement and cost of each step. Organize the tasks into a timeline. Assign tasks to the project participants.

Q: The occasion for the speech can go a long way in helping you determine the topic. Your speech topic will vary depending on whether the occasion is celebratory, just plain fun, solemn, or professional. Here are a few ways that the occasion can help influence your speech topic: If the occasion is solemn, such as a funeral or memorial service, then your topic should be serious and relevant to the occasion. If the occasion is fun, such as a toast at a bachelor party, then it's time to bring out the fun anecdotes and stories and to make people laugh -- not to share your passion for coin collecting. If the occasion is celebratory, like a wedding, then you need to provide some light-hearted humor as well as some serious and sentimental points. If the occasion is professional, then you need to stick to a professional topic, such as website design, and not focus on your personal experiences. Your purpose is related to the occasion and is the goal you want to achieve through your speech. Your purpose can be to inform, persuade, or just to entertain your audience. A speech can have a variety of purposes, but it's important to be acquainted with the most common purposes: To inform. To inform your audience, you'll need to provide relevant facts and details about a subject that reveals information that allows your audience to see an ordinary subject in a more complicated light, or to learn about a completely foreign subject. To persuade. To persuade your audience, you'll need to use rhetorical techniques, metaphors, and convincing evidence from experts to show them that they should do something, whether it's to elect you for office, recycle more, or take the time to volunteer in their communities. To entertain. To entertain your audience, you'll need to draw on personal or anecdotal examples, tell funny stories, show off your wit, and make your audience crack up, even if you're communicating an underlying serious message. To celebrate. If you're celebrating a specific person or event, you'll need to show your audience what makes that person or thing so special, and to garner enthusiasm for your subject. If you want to select a topic that suits your purpose and is relevant to the occasion, then you should eliminate a variety of topics before you even start brainstorming ideas. This will make it easier for you not to offend or just bore your audience as you move forward with your ideas. Here are a few things to consider as you cross those potential topics off your list: Don't pick anything so complicated that it would be impossible to inform your audience. If you pick something so complex that it can't be explained in a short amount of time or without pages of charts or diagrams, then you will lose your audience. Don't pick something that's so simple that your audience could understand it in just a minute or two. If your topic is so basic that you'll only be repeating yourself after you've said just a few sentences, then you'll lose your audience's interests as well. You want to keep your audience members on their toes, not knowing what to expect next. Don't pick anything that's too controversial. Unless you're at a convention for controversial speeches, it's best to avoid topics that are too controversial, like abortion or gun control. Of course, if your goal is to persuade your audience to agree with one side of these issues, then you should go ahead with your speech, but know that you may lose many people before you begin. Don't pick anything that doesn't fit the mood of the audience. If it's a celebratory occasion, don't give a dry speech about irrigation; if it's a professional occasion, don't give an emotional speech about how much you love your mother.
A:
Consider the occasion. Consider your purpose. Know which topics to avoid.