What is a project?

What is a project? In common sense, project is far away from normal people, except those work in a project based company/organization.But I would like to say, projects are everywhere in our daily lives.

A project is temporary endeavors to archive some specific objectives.Temporary does not mean the endeavor is short, on the contrary, it can be as long as decades.Make an advertisement is a project, building a tower like Eiffel is no doubt a huge project.Outcome of a project can be a product, some services, or just a result.Not all projects have outcomes, some projects may be terminated due to sponsor's mind change, customer's need cancel, market change, over budget, etc.

Normally, a project consists of five process groups - Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, Close - according to project management body of knowledge(PMBOK) condensed by Project Management Institute(PMI).And there are 47 detailed processes distributed in ten knowledge area - including Integraty, Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resource, Communication, Risk, Procurement and Stakeholder.These knowledge are must for a professional project manager.

Besides, a project manager(PM) should have talented soft skills like leadership and passion.

Commercial project is always goal directed, so a PM is always with characters like positive, optimistic, highly planning and ambitious. For disciplined people, it's very helpful to treat everyday's life as project.Preparing for a exam is a project for personal, entertaining friends at dinner is also a project for a family.Projected life makes you more goal-oriented.