The Definition of a Project

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General Questions and Comments

Hey Team,

Just curious what the official definition of a business project would be. I do lots of things for my clients. Most involve more than one step. I also at times delagate some of the steps to support staff but am uncertain at which point it becomes a project and I would be better off using some of the project management advice shared by these wonderful podcasts.

Is it scope? Budget? Time to completion? How do you know it is a task with mutlitple steps or a project?

Thanks for your support!

 

Michael Andrew Boyko

Submitted by John Rosenau on Wednesday November 23rd, 2011 11:08 am

According to David Allen in Getting Things Done, anything more than 1 or 2 steps is a project.  In a previous position, I had directs who had a "task" to get done.  I realized that some of the tasks were actually small projects, consisting of multiple steps.  I then was able to take project tracking methodology and apply it to those tasks.  
Hope that helps.
John

Submitted by Richard Gent on Wednesday November 23rd, 2011 2:46 pm

 According to the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge  
A project is A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. 
The key word here is temporary.  All projects have an end.  All projects have deliverables.
You can find more information at http://www.pmi.org/en/PMBOK-Guide-and-Standards/Standards-Library-of-PMI-Global-Standards.aspx 
In My View:
Each of your manager's priorities set for you is a project.  The work you perform toward these priorities (targets) is a task.  The work that your  directs perform are tasks or sub-tasks.  I report on all of my priorities to my manager as projects with staus first then activity.
Best Regards,
dickGENT
 

Submitted by Michael Andrew Boyko on Thursday November 24th, 2011 10:28 am

Great advice.
One can conclude that if we're working on a one time, or repeating but not consecutive, "task" with multiple steps - even 2 or three steps - it could be considered a project and should be followed up on during a drumbeat meeting and given the red, amber, green status reporting style.
This is helpful in changing the way I assign and follow up with projects and tasks required to complete projects.
One last, minor, question. What is the difference between a task and sub-task?
Thanks!
 
Michael Boyko

Submitted by John Rosenau on Monday November 28th, 2011 12:27 pm

A sub-task is any task that is used to complete a larger task.  A task might be worked on by several people but a sub-task is generally 1 persons unit of work.  I'm in IT, so I'll use an over-simplified example from an IT project.
Project: Deliver Software Application in 3 phases
Task: Deliver phase 1 of application
Sub-Tasks: Coding of application by developer, testing of application by quality analysts.
and so on . . .
John