Report Sections (Project Plan)

Here’s a default structure I recommend for an IEM thesis, plus what the “project plan” deliverable should contain.

Recommended Structure

Scientific writing often follows IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). In IEM theses, a practical equivalent is:

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Context Analysis
• Chapter 3: Literature / Theoretical Background
• Chapter 4: Methodology / Solution Approach
• Chapter 5: Results and Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusions, Recommendations, and Future Work

The Project Plan (Chapters 1–3)

The first three chapters typically form the project plan. Together, they should convince the reader that:

1. The problem is relevant and well-defined.
2. You understand the context and constraints.
3. You know what the literature says (and where the gap is).
4. Your planned approach is defensible and feasible.

A Typical Structure for Chapter 4 (OR / Optimization Projects)

If you are doing an optimization-style thesis, a common Chapter 4 structure is:

1. Problem description: define the problem precisely and solve a toy example to establish notation and expected behavior.
2. Mathematical formulation: present the MILP (variables, constraints, objective) and explain modelling choices.
3. Solution methods: describe exact/heuristic/metaheuristic approaches, and justify why you chose them.
4. Experimental setup: datasets, baselines, metrics, parameter choices, and how you ensure fair comparisons.

Example paper (for structure and writing moves): The Share-a-Ride Problem: People and parcels sharing taxis.