Letter to the Editor:
On the Definition of “Project”

February 5, 2009

Dear David,

As you know, I was the primary author of the original version of "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge" and thus largely responsible for its definition of project. I thought it was a pretty good definition at the time, and I still think so ... to some extent. 

My reservations come from that fact that the explanatory text is needed to really appreciate the definition: it doesn't stand on its own. But I still think it is at least as good as any of the other definitions in widespread use such as those from ISO or IPMA.

So I may be a bit prejudiced, but I found both the logic of Mr. Gasik's position and his proposed alternative seriously flawed.

First, his argument rests on the assumption that we must know that the product, service, or result of the work we are undertaking will be unique before we start. Why? No justification or explanation is offered.

Second, he ignores the rather detailed discussion of what is meant by "unique." He appears to think that uniqueness comes only from the "detailed description" of the product of the project when it could, in fact, come using a different approach, a different team, or being in a different location. To accept this argument, we must accept the proposition that the NASA Mars trip is not a project until after the results have been defined in detail.

A large part of the problem here is that he is relying on the addition of "collect requirements" to support his view. "Collect requirements" (according to the definitions in the document) is a product-oriented process and not a project management oriented

process: it does not belong in the document at all. It was proposed for the 2004 version and rejected. Why it was included in the 2008 version, I have no idea, but it certainly doesn't repeat in each phase as the other project management oriented processes uniformly do.

Finally, his proposed alternative is too broad: pretty much everything an organization does is done in response to an internal business need or external influence. When Ford builds a car ... internal business need to generate revenue. When AIG processes a claim ... external influence that caused a loss. On the other hand, applying his logic to his definition, we may not know if we are actually responding to an internal need or an external influence until ... after we have collected the requirements.

William R. Duncan,
Project Management Partners
Primary author of the original version of
“A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”
Board Chair, PMCert, the independent certification body of asapm


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