General Thesis Outline
What is the problem?
Exactly what are we trying to solve?
Why is it significant?
What are 2-3 compelling examples of the problem and its solution?
How will we measure success?
Prior work
What have others done
To attack the problem
To attack similar problems
To create a foundation technology
Why do these other approaches not solve the problem
Overall Approach
What is the general outline of your solution approach
Key Challenges
What are the things that must be done to solve the problem
Examples of how they relate to the problem
A Chapter for each key challenge
What was the challenge & how does it relate to the problem
How did you solve the challenge
Algorithms
Architecture etc.
Examples
Evaluation of success
Evaluation
How did your solution fare relative to your evaluation
Summary
What was the problem
Briefly how did you solve the problem
What remains to be done