What is Project Management? - A New Definition

Cova and Holstius succinctly define a Project as “…a complex transaction concerning a package of products, services and works, designed specifically to realize in a certain period of time a specific asset for a client." (1993). While the Project Management Institute also emphasizes the constrained, temporary, and unique nature of project activity it adds, “Projects are a means of organizing activities that cannot be addressed within the organization's normal operating limits.” (PMBOK 2004). Others also acknowledge dimensions of discontinuity, uniqueness, and complexity as characteristics common to all projects (Mandjak & Verez 1998).

The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines Management as: (1) “The act or art of managing: the conducting or supervising of something.” , and (2) “Judicious use of means to accomplish an end.” (2007).

Project Management, then, can be distinguished as; the work of supervising temporary, discontinuous, unique, and complex sets of activities with limited resources in order to accomplish a specific result.

REFERENCES

Cova, B. and Holstius, K. (1993). How to create competitive advantage in project business. Journal of Marketing Management 9(2):105-121

Mandjak, T., and Verez, Z. (1998). The D-U-C model and the stages of the project marketing process. Paper presented at the 14th IMP conference. Turku, Finland.

PMBOK (2004). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3rd Ed. Newton: Project Management Institute.