Project scoping at CIDS
Curtin Institute for Data Science · Perth, WA
Not sure what you should build yet
That is the normal starting point. Most partners arrive with a problem, some data and a hunch, not a specification. Scoping is the short, structured piece of work that turns those three things into something you can plan, cost and put in front of a funder.
- Timeline
- 2 to 4 weeks
- Discovery
- 5 structured steps
- Commitment
- None afterwards
What happens in discovery
The Scope stage of the pathway
Framing call
One conversation to state the problem plainly: what is not working, who it affects, and what a good outcome would actually look like.
Data and systems
We look at what you already hold, files, databases, sensors, documents, and whether it can carry the question you want to ask of it.
Method options
Two or three technical routes with the trade-offs stated: what each would take, what it would prove, and where each one falls over.
Team and funding fit
Who needs to be in the room, CIDS specialists, Curtin researchers, your own people, and which funding pathways the work is eligible for.
Written scope
A short document: the problem, the recommended approach, the deliverables, the effort, the risks, and the option of not proceeding.
Scope sits third in the six-step pathway, after Talk and Explore. It is the step that makes everything after it costable.
What you walk away with
What do I get out of scoping?
A document and a decision. Everything below is yours to keep and use however you like, whether the project runs with CIDS, runs somewhere else, or does not run at all.
The problem, defined
A problem statement you can circulate
One page your executive, your engineers and a funding body can all read without needing it translated for them.
The constraints written down
Data access, privacy obligations, timelines, systems nobody is allowed to touch and decisions already made, captured before they derail a build.
What success would have to look like
The measure the project gets judged on, agreed at the start rather than argued about at the end.
The technical direction
An honest read on your data
Whether what you hold can support the question, what is missing, and what it would take to close the gap.
Two or three viable approaches
Statistical modelling, machine learning, computer vision or plain software, chosen for the problem rather than for the label.
The smallest useful first build
The pilot that proves or kills the idea fastest, sized so it can start without a twelve-month approval cycle in front of it.
The funding and the next step
Which schemes the work actually fits
ARC Linkage, CRC-P, MRFF, Innovation Connections and the WA state programs each fund a different shape of project.
A budget shape that survives review
Compute, storage, data preparation and specialist time estimated in the form an assessor expects to see them.
A recommendation, including “not yet”
If the work is not ready, or the data will not carry it, we will say so. That is a useful result, not a failed one.
Cost
Does scoping cost anything?
The first conversation does not. Getting far enough to understand your problem, say whether CIDS is the right group for it, and give you a rough sense of what it would take is something we do as a matter of course, not something we invoice for.
A formal scoping engagement is different. Where the work needs real effort, reviewing data, testing feasibility, comparing methods, or producing a document a board or a funding body will read, it is quoted up front against a defined set of deliverables, so you know exactly what you are agreeing to before anything starts.
Where scoping leads into a funded project, that work is not repeated or recharged. It becomes the first section of the project plan. And where it leads nowhere, the document is still yours.
You don't need a spec or funding to start
Start with the problem
Most partners come to CIDS with a question, not a finished plan.
Explore the pathway
We can help shape the project concept, collaboration model and technical route.
Find funding options
We can identify grant, industry, government and research funding pathways.
Bring in the right people
We can connect Curtin researchers, CIDS specialists and external partners.
Shape the evidence
We can provide technical input into applications, scope and deliverables.
Support collaborative grants
If there is strategic and technical alignment, we can support a collaborative application.
Bring us the problem you want to test.
Share a few details and CIDS can help shape the first conversation.