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Being a project manager role for years. Even sometimes I may forget the fundamental concept when I am asked to “follow up a project”, while the “project” may not even fit into the definition of a project.
So, what is a project? It should be a fundamental concept that we should ask before we start a project.
According to PMI (Project Management Institute), a project is a series of structured tasks, activities, and deliverables that are carefully executed to achieve a desired outcome. They are temporary efforts to create value through unique products, services and processes.
The Triple Constraints
Time
Take a look on the definition of a project, it states that a project does have a nature of “temporary”, meaning it should have a start date and end date. Even under agile framework, I will still say there is the time constraint while it is somehow relative, I will talk about it in future articles.
Scope
A project must have a desired measurable outcome. The scope may be updated from time to time under agile methodology, but it shall still responding to the desired outcome. I added the word “measurable” to describe outcome, because we must ensure the deliverables and tasks are responding and fulfilling the outcome.
Cost / Budget
The temporary efforts required for the project would be the cost or budget. It involves the resources and materials that we shall assign to the project.
I am not saying the triple constraints to be fixed, while I would like to point out you should be able to evaluate the project progress and risk based on the triple constraints during the project implementation. A change in one constraint will certainly affect the other two.
Examples
Being in the IT industry, sometimes I am asked the difference between IT support and IT projects. From my point of view, IT support refers to resolving the technical issue on the usage of existing software or hardware. It requires IT professionals to respond to the request based on Standard Operating Procedure. And, there will not be any desired outcome for the collective of requests. Each user request is unique to each other. It does not involve the structured tasks planning on the collective of requests since you never know the request details until submission from users.
However, sometimes I may put Support as a project phase after roll-out. Being in consulting agency, it is usual that we will include warranty or support service towards what we have delivered. Unlike general IT support, the support service after roll-out shall limit to the inquiries, usage and issues on the existing project deliverables.
Final words
It is a fundamental concept on the definition of “project”. And, I hope it would be insightful to business management and project managers to decide whether you should form a team with a project manager involved before you start a project. I