Portfolio Project Deeper Overview

What is a Portfolio Project?

The Portfolio Project is a capstone endeavor designed to encapsulate all the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired during the ALX Foundations program. You will be tasked with creating a project from scratch, showcasing your ability to apply what you’ve learned in a real-world context.

Freedom to Explore

We’re setting you free on this one. There are no strict guidelines on what to build. Your heart’s desire, guided by your creative spirit, is the limit. Mobile apps, web applications, game development—pick your passion and run with it.

1. Research Phase

• Duration: 3 weeks, comprising 3 mini-projects.

  • Idea Generation: begin with brainstorming and documenting your project idea.

  • MVP Design: Develop a concept for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

  • Project Mapping: Draft a detailed plan on how you will execute the projects.

2. Building Phase

• Duration: 3 weeks, also with 3 projects.

  • Development: This is where your project starts to take shape. Begin with the MVP and expand from there

  • Landing Page Creation: Develop a compelling landing page for your project.

  • Presentation Preparation: Start preparing for your project presentation.

3. Post-Project Phase

• Duration: 1-2 weeks

  • Blog Post: Write your experience and what you learned during the project development process.

  • GitHub Clean-up: Refine your project's GitHun repository, focusing on improving the README and documentation.

  • Final Presentation: If you have not presented you project yet, now is the time.

Teams

You can choose to work individually or collaborate in teams of up to three. However, the team you choose for the Research and Project Approval (Part 1) is the team you will work throughout these seven weeks. Team adjustments won't be possible.

We highly encourage you to make informed decisions when picking your teammates. Whoever you pick in Research and Project Approval (Part 1) is the person you will be stuck with for the next 8 weeks. Don’t randomly pair up with people. Before making a pairing request to someone or accepting a pairing request from someone, make sure to have a conversation with them.

If you want to work in a team of 3 people, you are supposed to send a request to the 2 other people at the same time. If you make a request to only one person, you will end up in a team of 2 people.

Team Repairing is not going to be done for the portfolio project, therefore kindly follow the instructions.

Time Management

We’ve seen so many cases of learners under-estimating the amount of work required in their portfolio project. Please begin working on your project as soon as possible. Don’t wait until the last minute. Plan your time really well. The Reasrach and Planning project Part 3 will help you with this, make sure you follow the plan you come up with.

Presentation

After you are done building you will be expected to present your project to senior learners. There is a process in place for this you will learn more when we get to this part. The presentation is very important. If you fail to present your project and consequently not get scored for the Portfolio project you will not be validated and you won’t be able to proceed to specialization.

No Project Idea?

As indicated in the other concept page, if you are unable to come up with your own idea, you can build the Maze Project. If you pick the maze project you are still expected to do all the other projects i.e Research, Building … The only difference is that your project idea is provided by ALX. You will do your Research Part of the project around the Maze Project.

Support and Questions

If you have any questions or need clarifications, feel free to ask on Discord. We’ll also have sessions throughout the 7-week period to help you overcome any obstacles.