MEANING AND DEFINITION OF PROJECT

Everybody has heard about projects in our surroundings. Most of have done as their part of vacation in their schools. Like summer projects, winter projects and so on.

While others have done it in their colleges. Some have really completed many projects professionally.

Let me ask you one thing, What do you mean by projects?

You….. going through my blog, just hold a second and reply yourself about the answer that you will speak.

Practically, when I asked to most of the professionals,

I could hear them saying “A project is ….Umm…… Aaa….” you all know the rest.

This is why I have made my mind to help all those people who has do their projects but do not know what the projects actually means. I assure you that you will be easily answerable after reading my blog, academically as well as professionally.

A project is predefined set of activities which is designed to create a unique product within the constraints of time, cost and quality, through the integrated use of resources. The resources may be human resources or non-human resources. Human resources could be in the form of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled human resources. Similarly, non-human resources can be in the form of money, material, machines, land and technology.

All the projects has definite starting and ending points. It has a definite life cycle and specific groups of beneficiaries. Organizations must grow in order to survive. All the organizations continuously searches for growth generating ideas. All the modern organizations are running their plans through projects. Therefore, projects are also called ‘cutting age of development’.

Opinions upon the definition of project:

According to Project Management Institute of USA :

“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.”

According to Harold Kerzner :

“A project is any service of activities and tasks that:

-have a specific objectives to be completed within certain specifications

-have a definite start and end dates

-have funding limits

-consumes resources”

All the Projects are operated in the environment which is dynamic and contemporary. A projects influences the environments and also gets influenced by the environmental forces. These forces could be internal as well as external.

Internal forces comprises of customer, competitors, suppliers, stakeholders and employees. Similarly, external forces comprises of political, legal, economical, social, cultural and technological factors. 

All the projects are temporary in nature and are considered as a main source of development of any country. whether it be a undeveloped country, developing country or developing country, all the business vision are accomplished through projects. 

Although the projects have predefined life span, but it plays a significant role in getting the work done as per the target set. All the projects are managed and operated through the person called project manager.

Thus, if you are asked to define project in one simple sentence then, you can say -

“Project is defined as a predetermined set of the activities operating in the dynamic environment that involves different kind of resources which are designed to achieve predetermined objectives within the limitation of time, cost and quality.”




(for characteristics and features of the project)