Wikipedia - Project

For all other uses, see Project (disambiguation).

A project in business and science is a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.^[1]

[edit] Overview

The word project comes from the Latin word projectum from the Latin verb proicere, "to throw something forwards" which in turn comes from pro-, which denotes something that precedes the action of the next part of the word in time (paralleling the Greek p??) and iacere, "to throw". The word "project" thus actually originally meant "something that comes before anything else happens".

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".

This use of "project" changed in the 1950s^{[citation needed]} with the introduction of several techniques for project management. Use of the word "project" evolved slightly to cover both projects and objects. However, certain projects continue to include so-called objects object leaders

Contemporary^[update] Western business — characterized by a modern matrix organization and a cooperative culture — currently^[update] particularly favors project-based approaches. Authoritarian, bureaucratic organizations with rigid, hierarchical structures show less enthusiasm about project-based work, which may not operate as expected in their environment due to conflicts between different cultures.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Specific uses

[edit] School Usage

Within public schools in the United States, a project is an assignment given to a student which generally requires a larger amount of effort than normal homework assignments. They can range anywhere from simple written projects to elaborate and well-constructed Science Fair Projects.

[edit] Project management

In project management a project consists of a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.^[2] An other definition is a management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified business case^[3].

Project objectives define target status at the end of the project, reaching of which is considered necessary for the achievement of planned benefits. They can be formulated as S.M.A.R.T.E.R^{[original research?]}: Specific, Measurable (or at least evaluable) achievement, Achievable (recently Acceptable is used regularly as well), realistic (given the current state of organizational resources) and Time terminated (bounded), Ethical and Recorded. The evaluation (measurement) occurs at the project closure. However a continuous guard on the project progress should be kept by monitoring and evaluating. It is also worth noting that SMART or SMARTER is best applied for incremental type innovation projects^{[citation needed]}. For radical type projects it does not apply as well. Goals for such projects tend to be broad, qualitative, stretch/unrealistic and success driven.

[edit] Examples of notable projects

• Human Genome Project which mapped the human genome
• Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear weapon
• Polaris missile project: an ICBM control-system
• Project Apollo, which landed humans on the moon
• Soviet atomic bomb project
• Soviet manned lunar projects and programs

[edit] See also

Look up project in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Megaproject
• Process
• Project governance
• Project Management Institute (PMI)
• Project management software
• Project planning
• Cone of Uncertainty

[edit] Footnotes

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Project".