Definition – What is a Project?

The PMI defines a project as

“A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources. A project is unique in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal. So a project team often includes people who don’t usually work together – sometimes from different organizations and across multiple geographies.”

This means that a project is not something that lasts forever (admin task, maintenance, day to day accounting, reporting) as it has a clear start and end e.g. building a house, building an app, implementing a service.

This “defined start and end” can cause confusion, especially when a client has contracted a service. As normally a service (e.g. SAAS software as a service, outsourcing an activity) has an implementation phase (the project) and the recurring or support phase (after the project has gone live / put in place the service). As clients commonly believe that the project does not end and the people who implement the service (project team) will be the ones they work with forever when in fact they will be working with the recurring services department (e.g. client relationship manager, call centre, online support etc).