What is a project?
I know you too encountered this term even before and you would perhaps agree that we usually used this term when we are referring to our afterschool activities right? On my case, I used this term frequently when I’m referring to my big school works. I mean those that require a long span of time, those tasks I considered as with high difficulty or usually conducted before the semester ends. And if you are not a student anymore, this term might usually mean something that you are working to in relevance with your career. But, is the definition of this term limited only to what we are thinking?
I was a bit surprise with the definition I learned in the first day of our class in Project Management which is still facilitated by Mr. Randy Gamboa. According to him, everything we do is actually called a project. I was puzzled that time. I mean, is it really everything? I could agree with him if he says it’s called work or something alike, but he still insisted. He then asks us what we usually do in our house. One of my classmates said, “I do wash plates”, and then sir said “Well, that’s a project.” “How you enter this university is called a project too”, he added. I began to realize that projects perhaps are about matters that needed to be under a course of action or process before completion. But my realization that time was still narrow (although not wrong) until he cited an additional case. He asked, “Why you are here studying? What’s your purpose?”Some answered “to learn”, and some naughty people answered “to have an allowance”. Then sir said, “You are here because you wanted to graduate!” Well, we could not agree more with him. Then he said with conviction, “That’s your project!” “By entering in the college you are actually starting your project, and graduating means finishing it” he added. Then he continued on lecturing. He defined the term project with the help of the PMBOK or Project Management Book of Knowledge, as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. From this definition we can say that projects are in fact temporary only . Temporary because it has a definite beginning and end not necessarily mean short in duration. Remember the example our facilitator stated that I mentioned earlier? The graduation thingy? Yes, like what he said, entering the college means starting the project, and graduating means ending it. Therefore, the definition from the book and the example are actually in match. Studying is a project that had a definite beginning and a definite end. However, according to the book, an end of a project is reach when the project’s objectives have been achieved or it becomes clear that the project’s objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exist. So now, can we still call studying as a project? Certainly! Before we enter college, our minds are already set for the diploma, right? So if you can notice, right from the start we already have a vision or an objective, which is to graduate, and not just to graduate, but to graduate on time! If we cannot reach that objective, that simply means we cannot graduate so the project fails and ends. Or if it became clear to us that the project’s objective will not or cannot be met either due to the difficultness of the course we took or to the terror teachers who keep their prying eyes on us, that still means we cannot graduate, so the project still fail and have its end. Or maybe because of the worst case scenario where in the need for the project no longer exist (example is when we realized that we are into teaching and not in the computing field).And the best thing, if we be able to graduate (on time), or we achieved our objective, that means the project is successful and have its wonderful ending.
You know, honestly, what I wrote above was the “temporary” nature of a project. It was just one of its six natures. So we still have 5 more to tackle. Let’s start with the next.
According also to the book, a project is a “job done once”. Well, I’m not pretty sure if that was from the book or from the mouth of our facilitator, but anyways, as what the second nature implies, a project is actually a task done only once. (Waah! I’m just repeating it. lol) So if you already graduated from that course, what the hell you wanna take it again? Taking PhD and Masteral doesn’t mean taking it again huh? When you do the masteral and PhD means you want too be more knowledgeable to that field. And hey! You are starting new project again with new objective! Wow! You’re impressing me! lol.
Next nature, according to our facilitator (or from the book, I guess), a project is “designed to solve a problem”. We do projects for specific purpose. If we want to prove that students fail because of the teachers, we could have a research project about it. It can be used to determine whether or not it’s true. It will surely create a great impact in the society especially on educational areas. Referring to the definition of the project I mentioned earlier, a project creates unique product, service or result. These 3 are what call project deliverables. Let’s go technical while explaining this 3. According to the book, a project can create a product or articraft that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an end item in itself or a component item. In case of the services, it has the capability to perform a business functions supporting production or distribution. And a project also can create as a result, such as outcomes or documents. Therefore, a project actually has the property called uniqueness. Uniqueness in the light of my understanding means something a project possess in order to solve a problem. A project has to provide a specific response to a need (problem) in a specific context. They are innovative in short. It is something important in project deliverables. Since a project is unique, it means it is plan to work out on a specific problem also. Take for example, assuming that a bridge in your place was broken and needed to be fix, do the project need to fix also other broken bridges near your place? I guess not. Every project has its scope, time and budget. It has its limitation then. I will just discuss this further on my next post soon.
A project also “consists of interrelated tasks”. When making project, we need to gather data or information first to solve for a particular problem. If the information we gathered are not interrelated, there’s no sense in continuing the project ‘cause it will surely fail. And since projects are the product of collective endeavour. They are run by teams, involve various partners and cater for the needs of others.
The last nature was phrased as “all projects are work, but not all work is a project.” According to the book, work is operational or ongoing while project is temporary and unique. Still a bit puzzling? Well, what I think is that all projects are called work because they just not simply end, they could have impacts or aftereffects that could sustain a business or something. However, not all work is a project might be because a project is just temporary or it is designed to attain specific objectives then terminate if achieved. A work as we know creates new objectives once the other objectives were achieved then continue all along. And works also activities which can be repeated or transplanted anywhere at any moment; I think that’s the difference.
This time, I do know exactly what a project means, that everything is a project. Everything we do has objectives…that might be simple or hard to accomplish. And like all the projects, the endings are not predictable especially when we are not skilled at project management. There are times a project will fail because we did not attain the objectives or the need of it no longer exists. Just like life.
I know you too encountered this term even before and you would perhaps agree that we usually used this term when we are referring to our afterschool activities right? On my case, I used this term frequently when I’m referring to my big school works. I mean those that require a long span of time, those tasks I considered as with high difficulty or usually conducted before the semester ends. And if you are not a student anymore, this term might usually mean something that you are working to in relevance with your career. But, is the definition of this term limited only to what we are thinking?
I was a bit surprise with the definition I learned in the first day of our class in Project Management which is still facilitated by Mr. Randy Gamboa. According to him, everything we do is actually called a project. I was puzzled that time. I mean, is it really everything? I could agree with him if he says it’s called work or something alike, but he still insisted. He then asks us what we usually do in our house. One of my classmates said, “I do wash plates”, and then sir said “Well, that’s a project.” “How you enter this university is called a project too”, he added. I began to realize that projects perhaps are about matters that needed to be under a course of action or process before completion. But my realization that time was still narrow (although not wrong) until he cited an additional case. He asked, “Why you are here studying? What’s your purpose?”Some answered “to learn”, and some naughty people answered “to have an allowance”. Then sir said, “You are here because you wanted to graduate!” Well, we could not agree more with him. Then he said with conviction, “That’s your project!” “By entering in the college you are actually starting your project, and graduating means finishing it” he added. Then he continued on lecturing. He defined the term project with the help of the PMBOK or Project Management Book of Knowledge, as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. From this definition we can say that projects are in fact temporary only . Temporary because it has a definite beginning and end not necessarily mean short in duration. Remember the example our facilitator stated that I mentioned earlier? The graduation thingy? Yes, like what he said, entering the college means starting the project, and graduating means ending it. Therefore, the definition from the book and the example are actually in match. Studying is a project that had a definite beginning and a definite end. However, according to the book, an end of a project is reach when the project’s objectives have been achieved or it becomes clear that the project’s objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exist. So now, can we still call studying as a project? Certainly! Before we enter college, our minds are already set for the diploma, right? So if you can notice, right from the start we already have a vision or an objective, which is to graduate, and not just to graduate, but to graduate on time! If we cannot reach that objective, that simply means we cannot graduate so the project fails and ends. Or if it became clear to us that the project’s objective will not or cannot be met either due to the difficultness of the course we took or to the terror teachers who keep their prying eyes on us, that still means we cannot graduate, so the project still fail and have its end. Or maybe because of the worst case scenario where in the need for the project no longer exist (example is when we realized that we are into teaching and not in the computing field).And the best thing, if we be able to graduate (on time), or we achieved our objective, that means the project is successful and have its wonderful ending.
You know, honestly, what I wrote above was the “temporary” nature of a project. It was just one of its six natures. So we still have 5 more to tackle. Let’s start with the next.
According also to the book, a project is a “job done once”. Well, I’m not pretty sure if that was from the book or from the mouth of our facilitator, but anyways, as what the second nature implies, a project is actually a task done only once. (Waah! I’m just repeating it. lol) So if you already graduated from that course, what the hell you wanna take it again? Taking PhD and Masteral doesn’t mean taking it again huh? When you do the masteral and PhD means you want too be more knowledgeable to that field. And hey! You are starting new project again with new objective! Wow! You’re impressing me! lol.
Next nature, according to our facilitator (or from the book, I guess), a project is “designed to solve a problem”. We do projects for specific purpose. If we want to prove that students fail because of the teachers, we could have a research project about it. It can be used to determine whether or not it’s true. It will surely create a great impact in the society especially on educational areas. Referring to the definition of the project I mentioned earlier, a project creates unique product, service or result. These 3 are what call project deliverables. Let’s go technical while explaining this 3. According to the book, a project can create a product or articraft that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an end item in itself or a component item. In case of the services, it has the capability to perform a business functions supporting production or distribution. And a project also can create as a result, such as outcomes or documents. Therefore, a project actually has the property called uniqueness. Uniqueness in the light of my understanding means something a project possess in order to solve a problem. A project has to provide a specific response to a need (problem) in a specific context. They are innovative in short. It is something important in project deliverables. Since a project is unique, it means it is plan to work out on a specific problem also. Take for example, assuming that a bridge in your place was broken and needed to be fix, do the project need to fix also other broken bridges near your place? I guess not. Every project has its scope, time and budget. It has its limitation then. I will just discuss this further on my next post soon.
A project also “consists of interrelated tasks”. When making project, we need to gather data or information first to solve for a particular problem. If the information we gathered are not interrelated, there’s no sense in continuing the project ‘cause it will surely fail. And since projects are the product of collective endeavour. They are run by teams, involve various partners and cater for the needs of others.
The last nature was phrased as “all projects are work, but not all work is a project.” According to the book, work is operational or ongoing while project is temporary and unique. Still a bit puzzling? Well, what I think is that all projects are called work because they just not simply end, they could have impacts or aftereffects that could sustain a business or something. However, not all work is a project might be because a project is just temporary or it is designed to attain specific objectives then terminate if achieved. A work as we know creates new objectives once the other objectives were achieved then continue all along. And works also activities which can be repeated or transplanted anywhere at any moment; I think that’s the difference.
This time, I do know exactly what a project means, that everything is a project. Everything we do has objectives…that might be simple or hard to accomplish. And like all the projects, the endings are not predictable especially when we are not skilled at project management. There are times a project will fail because we did not attain the objectives or the need of it no longer exists. Just like life.
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