A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.

A project has the following characteristics:

• Temporary with a definite beginning and end; a defined life span
• Clear and agree-upon objectives
• Defined and measurable business requirements
• A corresponding set of activities to achieve the business requirements
• A defined amount of resources
• Performed by people
• An organization structure with defined responsibilities to manage the project
• Planned, executed and controlled
• Commitment to achieving the outcome

Note: Operations and projects differ primarily in that operations are ongoing and repetitive while projects are temporary and unique. Small maintenance requests, incident reports (bug fixes), adhoc reporting, webpage content changes, application performance/availability improvement, small networking or infrastructure changes and daily ongoing maintenance activities consume significant IT resources; however, these activities are not considered projects.