PSA: Not Everything Is a Project

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Change Management   Organizational Project Management   Portfolio Management   Strategy  

Project management has been good to me. If you are reading this, I’m guessing it has been fairly good to you, too. It may not be perfect, and it certainly comes with frustrations. But it can offer a meaningful career where project managers can actually make a difference for their employers, while also contributing to the growth and development of the people on our teams. I am very grateful to have been involved in project delivery for the vast majority of my career.

However, I hope that I have a degree of realism about what project management is—and is not. And by extension, what is and isn’t a project. I’m not sure that everyone has that same perspective.

I was recently speaking with someone viewed as an expert in not just projects, but also programs, portfolios and strategic planning. He was trying to convince me that as organizations have to evolve faster and more often to adapt to a changing world, “Everything is becoming a project.”

Is he right? Yes, there are more projects than in the past; and yes, organizations are shifting toward a model of continuous evolution that seeks to optimize operational work constantly.

But it’s far too much of a stretch to suggest that all of those changes are projects…or maybe I mean should be projects. I want to explore that more here, but I also want to hear your perspective. Do …

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