A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully
planned to achieve a particular goal.
An alternative view sees a project
managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations".
A project may be a temporary (rather than a permanent)
social system (
work system
Work system has been used loosely in many areas. This article concerns its use in understanding IT-reliant systems in organizations. A notable use of the term occurred in 1977 in the first volume of MIS Quarterly in two articles by Bostrom and Hein ...
), possibly staffed by
teams (within or across
organizations) to accomplish particular
tasks under
time constraint
In law, time constraints are placed on certain actions and filings in the interest of speedy justice, and additionally to prevent the evasion of the ends of justice by waiting until a matter is moot. The penalty for violating a legislative or cou ...
s.
A project may form a part of wider
programme management
or function as an ''ad hoc'' system.
Note that
open-source software "projects" or artists' musical "projects" (for example) may lack defined team-membership, precise planning and/or time-limited durations.
Overview
The word ''project'' comes from the
Latin word ''projectum'' from the Latin verb ''proicere'', "before an action," which in turn comes from ''pro-'', which denotes precedence, something that comes before something else in time (paralleling the
Greek πρό) and ''iacere'', "to do". The word "project" thus originally meant "before an action".
When the
English language initially adopted the word, it referred to a plan of something, not to the act of actually carrying this plan out. Something performed in accordance with a project became known as an "
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ai ...
". Every project has certain phases of development.
Based on the Project Management Institute, a project can be defined as a "temporary endeavor" aimed to drive changes in teams, organizations, or societies. The output of a project is normally a unique product, service, or result.
Cancellation
Project cancellation is the termination of a