Project Management – A Definition

Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space, etc.).

Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced.

What is a project?

Typical projects include the designing and construction of various objects or customer products and services, including deliverables such as buildings and electronic/electrical objects. The duration of a project is the time from its start to its completion, which can take days, weeks, months or even years.

In contrast to on-going, functional work, a project is “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”. Projects are temporary because they have a definite beginning and a definite end. They are unique because the product or service they create is different in some distinguishing way from similar products or services.