Is making a cup of coffee a project? How about a sandwich? Taking a shower? Grocery shopping?
Years ago, we had published an article on the difference between tasks and projects and to answer the above questions, it would be good to update and re-publish that articles.
What triggered the current article is a recent post on social media when someone included the following: making a cup of coffee it is a project but getting a cup of coffee from a vending machine is operation.
Well, 

Cup of coffee as a project

We asked, “a cup of coffee is a project?”
Someone else answered “yes, since a cup of coffee requires resources, like water, sugar, coffee … and it has a beginning and an end.
We posted this scenario on social media, and of course, most argue against a cup of coffee being a project; some joked about it, and some said yes – of course, it fits the definition.
Another PMP “trainer” had posted a few days back an advertisement to his PMP course and advising people “not to complicate things” since many things can be claimed as projects in the PMP pre-qualification process. Now, we are not sure if his claim is correct or just luring people to take his course. Some of what he said is that working as a street vendor is a project and taking an exam is a project. Basically, things like making coffee is a project.
The defence that these professionals use for these situations is that the PMBOK Guide define the project as temporary (beginning and end) and a project use resources (as explained earlier). Well, is the definition of project limited to start and end? Is it limited to using resources? If it is, then what distinguish projects from tasks?
If making a cup of coffee is a project then a barrister must qualify to be a certified program manager. A coffee shop manager can qualify as a portfolio manager, and so on.
Project management is not limited to reading a 10-word definition of a project. Or is this the extinct of what one will understand from reading or studying a guide like the PMBOK Guide (or any other guide for that matter).
To avoid these types of confusions, years ago, we in SUKAD modified the definition of a project. Maybe it is time to re-share the old article.

Task or Project

How can we differentiate between projects and tasks?
For many, that may seem like a simple question but is it?
Why the confusion?

Definitions

One reason is definitions.
If we try to define these terms, we notice that they are quite similar. Using the Thesaurus definition for ‘task,’ it gives us the following synonyms: “job, mission, commission, assignment, chore, undertaking, errand, etc.” Oxford Dictionary presents us with: “a piece of work to be done or undertaken: a new manager was given the task of developing the club’s talent”[1].
If we shift to ‘project,’ the Thesaurus presents us with: “mission, job, task, undertaking, assignment, etc.” so we can immediately notice that some of the synonyms are the same. Even “task” is also given as a synonym for “project.” Oxford Dictionary presents us with: “an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim”[2].
The Project Management Institute (PMI®) main standard, the PMBOK® Guide, defines ‘project’ as a: “temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”[3] Now some might say, “this could define a task as well” and we say yes – in a loose way.
Another reason for the confusion, besides definitions, is the actual use of the words. Often many people will be working on ‘tasks,’ and they call them projects. For example: if you ask your friend “what are you doing today” the friend my answer: “I have a project, my boss asked me to organize some files” … or something like that.

Differentiation

Fine confusion persists, then how we differentiate them?
It is not easy.
One possible way:
If the “work” could be routine work, or not unique, or it can be done in a few minutes or hours, then maybe the “work” is a “task” but if it is more substantial can it be a project? For example, if the “work” takes a few days to accomplish then is it a project? Here we have to refer to more definitions.
If we fall back on PMBOK® Guide definition – some might say “a task is temporary same as a project” and we would agree. However, the project should give a unique result; does a task give a unique result? So this would be a critical question to ask: “is the outcome unique?” The answer could lead us to decide whether we have a task or a project. Organizing files – we would typically do this work in similar fashion every time following a pre- prescribed criteria for the organizing (alphabetical, by topic, by a publisher, etc.). Therefore, this is primarily a task and not a project.
Another definition is what we use at SUKAD (www.sukad.com) which is: “A project is anything we create from scratch … or a major change to an existing system … that requires a major effort in terms of definition, planning & delivery”. In this definition, we added some key differentiators such as: “major effort” and what we mean here is indirectly referring to more than a few hours or days. We also added “create from scratch … or … major change” so here again we are referring to something more than organizing the boss’s files, or writing a routine report, or performing some analysis, among other things.

Clarifications

In discussions with colleagues and receiving feedback on the original post, one colleague made the point that “major effort” or “significant effort” are subjective terms since what is major or significant is variable based on the people or organizations using these words. We agree this is why we mentioned earlier that “major” is more than a few days, but this is still more subjective than qualitative.
As we said earlier this is not an easy definition and you can decide on your definition of what is a project or what is major in the context of projects.
For many organizations in the industrial business (oil & gas, power plants) anything less than 5 million US Dollars might not be even considered a project, or they might call it “operational project.” In those situations, major is defined in years and possibly tens and hundreds of resources. Whereas for small organizations or internal business projects, a project could be defined as anything that requires more than 40 hours of work.

Some Examples to Differentiate

• Organizing the boss files is a task; establishing a filing system could be a small project
• Issue an announcement for a course is a task; developing a marketing campaign is a project
• Registering for a conference is a task; organizing a conference is a project
• Collecting feedback from event’s participants is a task; drafting a feedback form is a task;  establishing a feedback system is a project
• Back to coffee, making a cup of coffee is a task or even a sub-task. Unless of course making this cup include planting the seed, harvesting, processing, roasting, up to making a cup of nicely and freshly brewed cup
• Feel free to add some of you own

Summary

We say a task should be something simple that you could do in minutes or hours, maybe a day or two at most. A task should also be for work that is considered operational or routine.
On the other hand, a project requires significant effort in term of planning and implementation (days to years) and usually result in something new or a modification to a major system. One thing we can add on here is that the project should also have many people involved whereas a task is quite often one person.
To close; since this is not a science, what we can only offer here is our humble opinion.
If you like us to discuss other topics, please do not hesitate in letting us know. You can comment on the blog or send us an email.
 
[1] http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/task
[2] http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/project
[3] PMBOK® Guide, Chapter 1