A PROJECT IS A TEMPORARY ENDEAVOUR UNDERTAKEN TO CREATE A UNIQUE PRODUCT, SERVICE OR RESULT. (PMI definition) THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS — the standard list, and each has a managerial consequence: 1. TEMPORARY — a definite beginning and a definite end. The end arrives when the objectives are met, when it becomes clear they cannot be met, or when the need disappears. CONSEQUENCE: the team is assembled and disbanded, so staffing, knowledge retention and handover are permanent problems. 2. UNIQUE — the output has not been produced before in exactly this form. Two houses on the same drawing still differ in site, ground, weather and crew. CONSEQUENCE: ESTIMATES ARE FORECASTS, NOT MEASUREMENTS, and therefore uncertain. 3. PROGRESSIVE ELABORATION — the definition sharpens as work proceeds. Early estimates are necessarily coarse. 4. RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED — limited money, people, equipment and time. 5. SINGLE POINT OF RESPONSIBILITY — a project manager accountable for the whole. 6. CROSS-FUNCTIONAL — draws people from several departments or organisations, who do not normally report to the project manager. 7. INVOLVES RISK AND UNCERTAINTY, in proportion to its novelty. PROJECT VERSUS OPERATIONS — the comparison examiners ask for: PROJECT OPERATIONS ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── duration TEMPORARY, defined ONGOING, continuous end output UNIQUE REPETITIVE, identical objective achieve the goal SUSTAIN the business and CLOSE team assembled, then permanent DISBANDED process evolving, planned standardised, refined once over repetitions risk HIGH — novelty lower — experience example building a running a power power plant plant ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── THE PATTERN: A PROJECT DELIVERS THE ASSET; OPERATIONS RUN IT. Building a hospital is a project; treating patients in it is an operation. The moment of handover is where one becomes the other, and it is a notoriously badly managed transition. THE TRIPLE CONSTRAINT (PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRIANGLE): SCOPE ╱ ╲ ╱ QUALITY╲ TIME ────── COST THE THREE ARE INTERLOCKED: changing one forces a change in at least one other, with quality sitting in the middle as what suffers when the other three are squeezed. "FASTER, CHEAPER, BETTER — PICK TWO" is the crude version, and it is essentially correct. A client demanding a compressed schedule at unchanged cost is, whether they know it or not, asking for reduced scope or reduced quality. MODERN TREATMENTS EXTEND IT to six: scope, time, cost, quality, risk and resources.

PROJECTS ARE CLASSIFIED SEVERAL WAYS, AND A QUESTION MAY ASK FOR ANY OF THEM. THE USEFUL ORGANISING IDEA IS THAT EACH CLASSIFICATION EXISTS BECAUSE IT PREDICTS SOMETHING ABOUT HOW THE PROJECT MUST BE MANAGED. ── 1. BY SECTOR / OWNERSHIP ──────────────────────────────── PUBLIC SECTOR — funded by government; roads, schools, irrigation. Objectives include SOCIAL BENEFIT, so appraisal uses economic (benefit-cost) analysis rather than purely financial return, and procurement follows the Public Procurement Act. PRIVATE SECTOR — funded by firms; appraised on financial return (NPV, IRR). PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP) — shared. Common in Nepal for hydropower and transport, typically as BOOT (Build- Own-Operate-Transfer): the private party finances and operates for a concession period, then transfers the asset to the state. ── 2. BY SIZE AND COMPLEXITY ─────────────────────────────── MINOR / SMALL, MEDIUM, MAJOR / MEGA PROJECTS. MEGAPROJECTS (conventionally above USD 1 billion) are treated as a category of their own because THEY FAIL DIFFERENTLY: long durations, many stakeholders, political exposure and a well-documented tendency to cost overrun. ── 3. BY NATURE OF WORK ──────────────────────────────────── CONSTRUCTION — buildings, roads, bridges, dams MANUFACTURING — producing a physical product RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT — the outcome itself uncertain, so the schedule is least predictable SOFTWARE / IT MANAGEMENT / ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MAINTENANCE AND REHABILITATION ── 4. BY DEGREE OF NOVELTY — the most managerially useful ─── DERIVATIVE — a small change to something existing. Low risk, estimates reliable. PLATFORM — a new generation of an existing family. BREAKTHROUGH — genuinely new technology. HIGH RISK, and conventional scheduling is least reliable precisely here. R&D — outcome not guaranteed at all. THE PRINCIPLE: PLANNING TECHNIQUES THAT WORK WELL FOR DERIVATIVE PROJECTS WORK WORST FOR BREAKTHROUGH ONES, so the choice of method should follow the novelty. ── 5. BY DELIVERY / CONTRACT ARRANGEMENT ─────────────────── TRADITIONAL (DESIGN-BID-BUILD) — design completed, then tendered, then built. Clear roles; slow; the designer and builder are separate, so buildability problems surface late. DESIGN-BUILD (TURNKEY) — one contractor designs and builds. Faster, single point of responsibility, less client control over design detail. EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) — the standard for industrial plant and power projects. BOT / BOOT — as above, used for infrastructure concessions. MANAGEMENT CONTRACTING and CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT. ── 6. BY URGENCY AND PRIORITY ────────────────────────────── MANDATORY — legally or safety required; NO "DO NOTHING" OPTION EXISTS, so the analysis compares costs only. OPERATIONAL NECESSITY — required to keep the business running. STRATEGIC — expanding capacity or entering a market. DISCRETIONARY — desirable but deferrable. ── 7. IN THE NEPALI CONTEXT ──────────────────────────────── The National Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance classify public projects for budgeting and monitoring: NATIONAL PRIDE PROJECTS — a designated set of strategically important schemes (major hydropower, international airports, large highways and irrigation) receiving priority funding and high-level monitoring. GAME CHANGER / TRANSFORMATIVE PROJECTS. P1 / P2 / P3 PRIORITY CLASSES in the budget system, determining which projects receive funds first when revenue falls short — a real and frequently binding constraint. Projects are also classified by IMPLEMENTATION LEVEL — federal, provincial or local — under the constitutional division of responsibilities. WHY CLASSIFY AT ALL — the concluding point: CLASSIFICATION IS NOT AN ADMINISTRATIVE RITUAL. It determines which appraisal method applies (financial or economic), which procurement rules bind, how much contingency is appropriate, what management structure suits, and how much uncertainty the estimates carry. A BREAKTHROUGH R&D PROJECT MANAGED WITH THE TOOLS OF A DERIVATIVE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT WILL REPORT CONFIDENT SCHEDULES THAT ARE MEANINGLESS. Matching the method to the class is the practical purpose of the whole taxonomy.