Project Management: What Exactly Is A Project

"Projects are similar in many ways but no two projects are the same." - John Babel

In project management, it's important to understand what a project is? What counts as a project versus what else might be part of our normal course of business? Well, there are a few unique characteristics that set projects apart from other sorts of work.

Projects always have a definite beginning and end

First of all, projects always have a definite beginning and end. This is true regardless of the length of the project. It could be relatively short, taking just a couple days or weeks to complete… or it could be much longer stretching into months or even years.

However, what's important is that there will be a specific date upon which we have started our work and at some point, once all of our requirements have been met… we will consider that work completed and we will wind down work on this particular project. Part of this is that both the process and the result of a project are unique. We're going to develop and follow a unique path to create a unique solution.

This is true even if we're working on projects that are relatively similar to other types of projects… that we've done in the past. For example, if we're in the construction business and we're building an entire neighborhood full of new homes… we may have many models that are very similar to one another… and in fact, the same model might be used for multiple houses.

However, we still are going to customize these for our customer's interests and their particular tastes. Some customers might want the exterior to be painted a certain way while others would prefer a different color. The same goes for the interior, or perhaps in the kitchen, we might choose a different type of cabinetry for one versus another… again, to help match up with those customer preferences.

Based on this information, we may find that a project is very similar in many ways… but no two projects are going to be the same.

Another key question is what exactly a project can create? We say that the process is going to be unique… what types of results might be the finishing point for all of our work on the project?
Well, this could include not just a new product, such as a new house or a new type of item or product that we're selling for our company… it could also include a product enhancement, some way to make something that's on the market right now better than it was before.

This could be either for external or internal use. So this could be a piece of software, for example, that we sell and release a new version to our customers… or it could be for a tool that we use within the organization ourselves.

We could also be looking to release a new service as opposed to a new product. So not something tangible, not a one-off transaction, but rather an on-going service that we can provide to either an internal customer… or someone external to the organization. We can also improve upon an existing service.

So we might have a pretty good cloud infrastructure in place right now, but we've decided we're going to add some more features, to help reduce latency, increase reliability by following some steps… that could be a project all unto its own or even several.

Finally, it could also be a new business asset that we create. Not a product or service… but instead something that the company itself can use moving forward. It could be a project for us to just go through the process of figuring out what type of new vehicle design we should come up with next… if we were a car company for example.

The different phases we would need to go through in that regard are;

· Where we have focus groups with customers.
· Where we get our employees together to understand what would be possible to design.
· See how we can leverage existing platforms.
· Where market demand is pointing us to for the next several years.

All of these different tasks could be considered a project of its own with the unique result at the end being a report… making our recommendation to be presented to the board of directors as to how we should move forward.

Projects require a purpose

In any case, whether it's a new product, service, business asset of some sort, or an improvement or enhancement on something that already exists… projects require a purpose to be initiated.

We're not going to do these for no reason. They have to be done to benefit someone for some specific reason. So it could be that we pursue a project in response to market demand.

Going back to the car company example, we may determine that we need to release a new SUV onto the market to keep up with consumer preferences, and so we're working to figure out how we can release that SUV… and then, of course, the project of designing and bringing to market the vehicle itself.

There could be a business need. This is often directly related to market demand… but think about some of the internal needs that could be met as well. It could be that our customer service system, for example, simply isn't up to par. It's not providing our employees with the tools and powers that they need… to best serve our customers. So being able to provide those tools to our employees is itself another type of worthy project.

There could also be a technical breakthrough of some sort that could lead us to start a new project. For example, if we develop mobile phones and new chipsets become available that are faster, that have better internet and wireless connectivity, and would allow us to introduce new and powerful features to users, we may decide that it's time to release a new model of our phone… and that, of course, will require a project of its own to design, develop, and deploy that to market.

There could be a customer order that serves as the trigger for a project being initiated as well. This is common in so many different types of businesses. We do work to specifically meet a customer's needs, and that also helps us to understand what the requirements for this project… to be considered successful might be right from the outset.

Finally, there could also be legal or regulatory requirements that arise. Let's say for example that we're in the power generation industry and we have determined that regulatory requirements are going to force us to phase out one of our existing power generating plants in the future… and replace it with something that's more environmentally friendly. Designing and deploying that solution could of course be a project all on its own.

Projects can take place at any level

Now projects can take place at any level of an organization, and any type of organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit, government, etc., can of course seek to benefit from project management.

Projects could involve just a small handful of people or a much larger amount. So it could just be a group that we work with directly, it could be units within our organization or even a joint venture between several different companies or organizations… coming together to accomplish something big.

In any case, it's rare for us to know exactly what we're going to need to accomplish our project work from the outset… when we embark on it. Rather, project management plans are iterative. We may have some idea of what we're seeking to accomplish, for example, design an SUV to better serve the market… or create a new technical platform for our call-center staff.

These are areas where we might have some broad objectives in mind, but it would be exceedingly rare for us to go in and know exactly what steps we need to follow… in order to complete those objectives before we've even begun our project work. Rather, plans are progressively elaborated as new information becomes available.
Oftentimes we simply won't know what all we need to accomplish to meet our requirements… until we begin the work on the project.

That's how we can discover how we need to finish up the rest of it.

As such, project plans tend to look something like this, we're in phase 1 of the plan, what we're doing right now… we might have a very good idea of what needs to be completed, even down to the activity level.

For phase 2, we might have less detail, but still a pretty good idea of what objectives we need to meet.

In phase 3, we might have an even less clear idea, and then there might simply be a large pile of additional work behind that.

However, as we finish up phase 1, we should have more detail in mind for phase 2. In phase 3, we should have more of an idea of what needs to be accomplished than we did previously. We might even expand into an additional phase 4 that wasn't previously present. We still have some additional work to complete on the back end of that, but we continue to have an even clearer idea of what must be completed.

As we finish tasks, we're able to progressively define additional activities that we can then complete… until we've met all of our objectives on the project.

Thanks for reading. If you have further questions, kindly drop a message below or DM me on Linkedin @saheed-oladosu and I will respond ASAP.