Governance and Managing IT Projects – Part III

Tactically, a project is a structured set of activities concerned with delivering a defined capability (that is necessary, but not sufficient, to achieve a required business outcome) to the entity; based on an agreed-upon schedule and budget. Additionally, a project is a temporary endeavor — having a defined beginning and end — undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives; usually to bring about beneficial change or added value.

The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to on-going operations — which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. Consequently, in practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate administration.

“View Part I of the Governance and Managing IT Projects series here“