Even though the externship project is not a corporate sponsored project, we still want to encompass some of the attributes seen in a  sponsored project. During the initial phase of the project a document called the Charter is worked on. A Charter is a written agreement defining what the team is to accomplish and how success will be measured. The Charter is used to focus on the team’s work and to set expectations as to what it will be accomplished. The description and success criteria are stated in a way the team understands and accepts as defining the overall scope of what the project will deliver. The team believes the success criteria are achievable with the resources available and in the required timeframe.

Once the charter has been signed off by the team members and sponsors, teams will begin to conduct research. Research helps teams communicate with current and potential stakeholders in a better way. It allows to identify opportunities and threats in the marketplace, thus minimizing risks. Through research teams can find approaches that best suit their project’s purpose and solution. Conducting industry research, market research, or user research based on the project's objective is cruitual to stay aligned with the sponsor.  Information is key to understanding all the implications within the solution. 

Based on the research and success criterias from the charter, teams will prototype their solutions in a medium that works best to express to their intended stakeholders. A prototype is generally used to evaluate a new design to enhance precision by the stakeholders. The most important advantage of a prototype is that it simulates the real and future product.

Before the Showcase, each team has the opportunity to have a dry run of their presentation in front of the sponsor (MISA President) as well as Professor Session. Professor Session, an MIS Professor and MISA’s advisor has years of experience with project presentation ethics to provide teams with feedback to help make their presentations more impactful, show the value behind their project, and try to convince the SJSU IT department to possibly adapting this solution within SJSU. Teams have a week to take these suggestions and revise their presentation before the showcase. 

All the work and dedication teams have put into this project, comes down to this final event, the MISA Summer 2020 Externship Showcase. Teams present their project plan to a panel of MIS professors, professionals from the tech industry, MISA Alumni, the SJSU IT department, and Dan Moshavi, the dean of Lucas College of Business. A group of 5 MIS Professors and the President of MISA judge the projects based on a set criteria on how the project solves the problem statement for this year’s externship project. The winning team of the Externship receives awards.