Think you know what a project is?

August 1, 2007 from Raven's Brain: Project Management

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PMThink! has a nice little write up on Max Wideman's project management glossary and the definition of a project: What is a Project? Think Again! Here's an excerpt:
Max Wideman’s very impressive Comparative Glossary of PM Terms contains 23 different definitions of the word project – all written by very knowledgeable people. Creating a sticky definition of the word “project” (a sticky definition is one that can be easily memorized by a general audience) requires battling the Curse of Knowledge. The Curse of Knowledge is the result of forgetting what it’s like NOT to know what you know. The more you know, the stronger the curse. That’s why truly sticky ideas usually come from unexpected sources. (Unexpected is one of the Made to Stick principles.) In my opinion, the very best definition of the word project comes from personal productivity guru David Allen, in his brilliant book Getting Things Done. Here it is...
  • A project is any outcome you’re committed to achieving that will take more than one action step to complete.

Why is this a great definition?

(1) This definition is water tight. Unlike the other 23 definitions, I can’t think of a single exception to this definition. (If you can, please post a comment.)

(2) The word outcome covers a lot of PM territory. The word outcome includes the concepts of “deliverables” and “creating unique products, services or results.” It applies to your garage project and it applies to “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

(3) The word action captures an essential element of every project – making progress one discrete step at a time.

(4) The word committed filters out activities that are not projects.

(5) The three key words outcome, action, and committed are simple and concrete (two more Made to Stick principles).

Read more here: http://www.pmthink.com/2007/07/what-is-project-think-again.htm

posted by Raven Young at Raven's Brain under Project Management
Tags:  Project Management, Project Management Glossary 


This article is syndicated from Raven's Brain: Project Management . The original article is available here. Read more in Project Management News, Raven's Brain: Project Management .

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