Part 2: What is a Project?
A Project is
- A Temporary Endeavor to create a Unique Product, Service or Result
- TEMPORARY = defined beginning and end
- A project’s duration can be short or long
- The Product or Service created by the project is not temporary; the project can have a permanent impact
- The project ends when it achieves its objectives, or when it is terminated (runs out of money, no longer possible to meet objectives, becomes illegal, no longer bringing benefits to the organization)
- A Product is unique, and can be tangible or intangible
- Projects have uncertainty
- Projects bring change to organizations, governments, and/or the community
- Projects create value for organizations
- There are several types of projects. Consider our example organization, which is designing ovens for sale in the United States. As shown in the table below, we could have several types of projects.
| Project Type | Example |
| Product | Design of a new Oven |
| Product, which is a component of another Product | Design of a new Oven door |
| Service | Development of a maintenance/repair program for the ovens that we sold |
| Capability to perform a service | Expanding our maintenance crews to service ovens in other countries |
| Improvement in existing product/service | Improve our oven manufacturing process to reduce defects in the final product |
| Result | Development of a marketing plan for our new ovens |