As per PMI (Project Management Institute), a project is a temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service or result. Every work we perform in all over the world is either Project or Operation or part of it. Let’s see, definition of a project i.e. What is Project.

Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverable that are constrained to a finite timescale and budget.

A key factor that distinguishes project management from just ‘management’ is that it has this final deliverable and a finite time span, unlike management which is an ongoing process. Because of this a project professional needs a wide range of skills; often technical skills, and certainly people management skills and good business awareness.

As mentioned, the objective of any project is to produce a unique product, service or result. These outputs can further handed over to operations. As soon as project has achieved its objective, it is completed.

For now, let’s continue on What is Project.

Project is a Temporary Endeavor

There are the possibilities when a project cannot reach to its objective because of various factors. We’ll discuss about these factors in future blog posts. Even in that case, project is failed. I mean to say, project always has an ending point. It can never have recurring or continuous endless lifespan. That’s why, project is a temporary endeavor.

Projects are temporary but their deliverable(s) can exist beyond the end of the project. Project may deliver for society, economy, environment or business. For example, a project may deliver a bridge on a river expected to last for decades.

Product, Services or Result are Unique

We should also know that every project is unique and it produces a unique product, service or result. Let’s take an example of a mobile manufacturing company, which produces various types of mobile sets into market. But every specific model of mobile sets is unique because it has different specifications, features, warranty etc. These mobiles are actually products of one or more projects.

To make it simple, I am assuming specific model of mobile is a product of one project in a mobile manufacturing firm. Project’s output (i.e. specific model of mobile) is always unique even if its specifications, features, warranty are similar to other mobile sets of different manufacturing organization. Because, there must be some differences in quality, grade, material used and many more.

 

Project is Unique

Not only the project’s output but project is also unique because each project follows different processes, tools, techniques, resources, technical factors, location, situation, people involved.

It may be the possibilities that same repetitive processes are used in various projects. For example, building roads in as city may be under more than one projects which are using repetitive set of tasks, common team and materials. But still, all of these projects are unique and are different in their own conditions because each one of them have different locations for implementations, stakeholders, duration, environment factors.

You should also note, a project can involve single organization or multiple organizations from any geographic location.

 

Examples of Project

• Constructing a building
• Organization merger
• Building a computer software
• Modifying a computer software for organization
• Perform market research for new organization new branch

 

I tried to cover as much as I could for to get started into project management, but if you still have a question in your mind, feel free to give me queries via comment.

Now, analyze your work and share with me in the comment box. Are you really working on a project?

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About Author

Satyendra Mishra

Project Management Professional (PMP) and Microsoft certified, motivated, energetic and accomplished Project Manager / Architect with 15+ years of work experience in Management, Architecture, Analytics, Development and Maintenance. I have been fortunate to be a part of over 25+ .Net / SharePoint projects delivery with various companies across different industry sectors. This has provided me a valuable insight and experience especially in successful implementation of SharePoint based solutions.

My experience in Web application implementation includes technology strategy and road-map definition, business and technical requirements identification, governance, platform architecture, solution design, configuration, development, quality assurance, training, post-production support, team lead and overall project delivery along with project management.

Satyendra Mishra holds a B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering and PG Diploma in Advance Computing from Center for Development and Advance Computing, Pune, India. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

I love to share Project Management Tips and Tricks by writing Blogs in the Project Management India Community. I have written around 300+ articles in the Project Management, .Net, SharePoint and related client side technologies.