When does a task become a project?

A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables, undertaken to meet particular goals and objective, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value (Wikipedia 2009).

If you undertake an activity with a definable start and end, a finite budget and some sort of deliverable/goal, then you are running a project.

Operational activities, which typically are ongoing in nature, are not projects. They may have a set budget, and goals/objectives, but due to their lack of date constraint can’t be considered a project. As a result project management methods do not always map to the oversight of operational responsibilities. This is a common misunderstanding and at times needs to be explained to management when they ask you to project manage these types of activities.

At times there may be projects to implement, document or improve an operational activity. Once the project portion is complete, handoff is key to ensure that your efforts do not get pulled into operational duties. I’ll talk about handoff & closing out a project in a later blog.

Once you know you have been assigned to manage a project the next step is to begin planning. Depending on your company that may be actual implementation planning or it may merely be corporate “annual plan” type planning which is less detailed, but still important to carve out time, money and resources based on some basic scope questions.

Next we will look at how best to do this first step in planning a project.