Deployment Guide/Requirements decision tree

NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... Please leave suggestions on the talk page.

This section is an experimental work in progress part of Improving the Deployment Toolkit and needs to be developed with the help of those experienced at doing deployments. Please add to this page to help make the questions as specific as possible so that future deployment teams can use it to build a detailed picture of their requirements.

This section provides a series of questions to help collect the information needed to plan a deployment. Each answer will help create a clearer picture of what needs to be done. Some questions have yes/no answers, in which case there will be more detailed questions beneath each answer to cater for that specific situation. As you work your way down the tree the questions will become more and more specific until you reach suggestions about ways in which you could proceed. This question tree is not intended to answer all your questions; every situation is unique. Working through this tree should help you think about the problems that will be encountered during the deployment and come up with ways of solving those problems. The idea is to think the whole deployment through before starting so that as each challenge occurs during the deployment you are ready to solve it.

Initially, this page will focus on the questions relevant for a deployment in a single school. As this completes, the section will be expanded to cover progressively larger deployments.

1. How many students are in the school?
2. How many teachers are in the school?
3. How many spare laptops will be required?
4. How many laptops will be required in total?
5. How many laptops will be in use at the same time?
6. How much power would be required to run this number of laptops? (5 watts x number of laptops)
7. Does the school have power?
   1. Yes, the school has power
      1. How many power sockets does the school have?
      2. How much power (in watts) is available in total?
      3. Can the teachers easily gain access to the power sockets from where the pupils will be taught?
         1. Yes, power sockets area accessible from the teaching area
            1. How much power in watts can be drawn from these power sockets?
            2. How many laptops could be charged at the same time?
            3. If there is not enough power for all laptops to be plugged in during lessons, is there enough that children could take it in turns to plug in without anyone running out of battery?
               1. Yes; Great!
               2. No, there is insufficient power
                  1. Could some other forms of power be used to supplement the power sockets?
         2. How many extension cables are required?
         3. No, power sockets are not accessible from the teaching area
            1. Consider installing power sockets
            2. What arrangements can be made to provide access to the power sockets?
   2. No, the school has no power
      1. Consider acquiring a generator
      2. Consider installing permanent solar panels
      3. Consider use of portable solar panels per laptop