What is a Project?

All projects are the result of a certain sort of cogitation. They normally born from fuzzy ideas and their realization are uncertain and faraway.

Some will say that they are building or developing a project. Other will say that they are leading a project. As you can see, a project is in reality a state. This is the state where the project managers are when they try to reach their objectives, with their ad hoc means in given deadlines.

A project could then be seen as a working team that tries to be in such a state.

What Is Project Management?

Project management is the activity that has as goal to end a project by reaching the objectives, with certain means in given deadlines. Managing a project also mean that they will need to take into account the constraints applied to the project and unforeseen events that could happen, and that probably will, during the realization of that project.

• Time management. The time management will help the project manager to be sure that he will be able to end a project, in the deadlines. Managing the time means defining a path to follow to end the project, and to timestamp it. The addition of these timestamps will form a time envelop. It is that envelop that the managers will have to manage. The main tool used to manage it is the old fashioned calendar. Then the manager will know if he will be able to reach the objectives of the project, in the specified deadlines.
• Resources management. At the beginning, the project will benefit of a given budget. This budget represents the means of the project. With that budget, managers will be able to buy the resources that they will need to reach the objectives of their project in the specified deadlines. Managing the resources could means buying material they will need to end the project. It could also means building effective working teams, or knowing their employees to know what they are really good at and affecting them for the right tasks. All things that belong to a project are resources and are there to be managed.
• Production management. The production management is nothing else than the path managers will follow to reach their objectives.

You need to have in mind that objectives, deadlines and means are inter-linked: they are the mind, the heart and the guts of Projects.

These definitions are applicable to all type of projects. However, if you put them into context, you could see the things differently.

By example, in a software development project, the objectives will only be totally defined at the end of the project. It could seem strange, but if you think about it, s software is not tangible. It is an aggregation of functions that will act together to create a certain comportment. Software developers will define what are the functionalities of their software (potentially with your client), they will model it, create prototypes, and test available technologies. Then they will eventually develop it, test it, tweak it, debug it, and finally release it. But they will not know how the final release version will really works before finishing it, impossible.

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