We explain what a project is and the types of projects that exist. In addition, the steps to follow to make one and its elements.
What is a project?
A project is understood to be a planning consisting of a set of activities that are interrelated and coordinated, with the express purpose of achieving specific results within the framework of the limitations imposed by previous conditioning factors: a budget, a span of weather or a series of established qualities.
Projects are usually understood as the preparation and arrangement in writing of the theoretical elements, materials and humans that will be needed to develop a product, service or single result, so in certain areas it can be equivalent to an outline, previous script, first draft, etc.
The formal and theoretical aspects of a project vary depending on its nature and its object of study, as well as its component parts. For example, some may emphasize their sources bibliographic, while others will do it in their methodology or its impact once finished.
A project has more odds to be successful when the leader (that is, who is in charge) establishes some type of control system or method Through which all the progress (or drawbacks) of the project are monitored throughout the stages based on what was planned. So that the necessary modifications can be made in time to achieve a better result and thus specify all the objectives.
Project types
Projects can be classified according to their scope of action, as follows:
- Productive or private projects. Those whose ulterior purpose is the cost effectiveness, that is, obtaining profit. They are usually presented in the business, entrepreneurial or industrial field.
- Public or social projects. Those who do not have profit, but achieve a significant impact on the society wave population on a different scale: local, regional, even global. They generally have as promoter the institutions of Condition, the NGO, or the corporate responsibility policies of large Business transnationals.
- Community projects. Those committed to improving specific aspects of a community determined, usually small, both urban and rural, through the satisfaction of their needs.
- Life projects. Those who focus on desires life of an individual and their actual chances of achieving self-realization.
- Research projects. Those whose objective is the documentation or acquisition of sources and materials around a chosen topic, as in Ad.
Steps of a project
The projects are made up of four stages:
- Diagnosis. The need and opportunity of the project is evaluated in its particular range of action, to determine under what conditions it should occur and what stages it will involve, etc.
- Design. Options, tactics and strategies that can lead to success, that is, to meet the objective. The feasibility of the project, its relevance and its specific needs are evaluated.
- Execution. The implementation of what is established in the project.
- Evaluation. The conclusions of the project, the results obtained after its investigation. It is a stage of control and information, based on the idea of improvement and accumulation of success factors over time.
Elements of a project
Projects usually consist of the following elements:
- Purpose and objectives. Section explaining the trouble that the project would solve, the aims it pursues and the goals concrete, general and specific.
- Product or service. Here is a description Detailed description of the final product to be obtained, explaining how this would respond to what is stated in the objectives and also to its area of execution, that is, to other types of similar situations.
- Schedule of activities. The steps to follow to meet the objectives are explained, arranged chronologically and detailing the amount of time that their satisfaction would require.
- Budget. The cost that the implementation of the project will have for its recipients, as well as the detailed way in which the money will be used in each phase of the project.
- Expected results. A detailed description of the results that you want to obtain through the application of the project, often accompanied by your margins of risk and of gain.