What is a Project?

Hi,
A project management book must define a project, so here I go...

CONTENT:

My rule of thumb for determining whether something is a project is to ask whether I am likely to forget stuff or stuff it up. If the answer is yes to either or both of these questions, I feel the need to plan it out and act like it is a project. Different people will have a different level of capacity to ‘just get things done’, so there are no hard and fast rules distinguishing projects from other activity using this method.

Another perspective on what is a project is that it is something significant that brings us closer to the overall goal. In a business context, the overall goal can be described as the venture or the vision (depending how practical or visionary you are). This is generally something really big, like building the Sydney Opera House or raising a child well. The project could be selecting a design (of the Opera House) or choosing a suitable high school (for the child). Similarly to the method above, there are no hard and fast rules for distinguishing projects from other activity using this method.

Another method is to define what is not a project, and the rest of our activity must be a project (or be part of a project). What is not a project is routine or repetitive activity for which the planning has taken place in the past, leaving us with policies and procedures that can be followed; or trivial activity which does not require planning. Examples include telemarketing for a charity, checking the quality of fruit on a conveyor belt, or washing the car (after you have done it a couple or times).

So identifying a project can be tricky. Or maybe not tricky. Maybe we should acknowledge that it is a slippery concept, and that we are likely to have a difference of opinion on this at times.

There is another perspective on this, and it sounds very objective (but it isn’t), and that is the definition from the uber-project management textbook ‘Meredith and Mantel’* (p. 9), which states: “In the broadest sense, a project is a specific, finite task to be accomplished.” They need to provide a lot of follow-up detail to convince the reader that brushing my teeth is not a project based on this broad definition.

The follow-up detail they provide is useful, and involves describing the following attributes of projects:
* Importance to senior management.
* A one-time activity divisible into sub-tasks that require coordination.
* An organic life-cycle with a due date.
* Reliant on interdependencies outside the project.
* Unique to the organisation.
* Limited in resources.
* Characterised by conflict.

These are very good points, and provide a greater understanding of what constitutes a project. However I still feel we cannot escape the subjectivity of the label ‘project’.

So finally, a project is what you call a project. If it is spring cleaning, that’s fine. If it is upgrading from one SAP version to another, that is fine too. If it is building the Sydney Opera House, great, but you may be reading the wrong book – this is about small projects, not Opera House sized ones.

…Geoff

* Meredith, J.R. and Mantel, S.J. 2006 Project Management: A Managerial Approach, sixth edition, Wiley, New York.