Fix the deadline and let the scope flex

Your deadlines are already fixed: the proposal defence, the mid evaluation and the final evaluation dates come from your department. What you control is how much you try to build. Basecamp's Shape Up method calls this an appetite: decide how much time a piece of work deserves, then design a version that fits that time, instead of estimating a fixed list of features and hoping.

Apply it to your project by sorting every feature into three groups:

• Must: without it there is no project. The core flow a user goes through.
• Should: makes it clearly better, planned for the second half.
• Could: nice extras, built only if time is left over.

Put only the must group in your committed objectives. List the rest as future work or optional features. Committees respect a focused project that works far more than a long feature list that half works.